/ 




[ 



■ 




MATTHEW ARNOLD 

From a photograph 



lOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

WITH OTHER POEMS 

BY 

MATTHEW ARNOLD 



r^0^ 





Edited by 
W. P. TRENT and W. T. BREWSTER 

Professors in Columbia University 




GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 




UEKARY of CONGRESS 
Two Comes Keceived 

jul 12 »yyb 

) Cepyrrslii tnuy 

M^-vo 7. I 4 b 

f /CLASS OC AM. No 

/ y „7„7 3 " 



COPY A. 






Copyright, 1906, by 
W. P. TRENT and W. T. BREWSTER 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



®t)t atftenaum JPresa 

GINN & COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



PREFATORY NOTE 

As "Sohrab and Rustum" is included in the list of classics 
that are to be read rather than to be minutely studied, the 
editorial apparatus of this edition has been kept within mod- 
erate compass. In order to encourage the student to read 
Arnold's poetry, selections from his poems have been added, 
with the minimum of annotation. The text of these selec- 
tions is eclectic, especially with regard to punctuation. 
Such teachers as desire, for special purposes, to have their 
pupils study Arnold the poet more intensively, will probably 
find many uses to which this additional material may be put. 
Good editions of the Poetical Works, to which older students 
may be directed, are those published by the Macmillan 
Company (1895) and by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. (1897). 

W. P. Trent 

W. T. Brewster 

New York, March 31, 1906. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction vii 

I. The Author vii 

II. The Poem xvi 

sohrab and rustum i 

Selected Poems 31 

Quiet Work 31 

Shakespeare 31 

To a Friend 32 

Written in Emerson's Essays ^^ 

To the Duke of Wellington 34 

Requiescat 34 

The Forsaken Merman 35 

Switzerland 40 

I. Meeting 40 

II. Parting 40 

III. A Farewell 43 

IV. Isolation 47 

V. To Marguerite — continued 48 

VI. Absence 49 

VII. The Terrace at Berne 50 

Philomela 52 

Dover Beach 53 

The Last Word 54 

Cadmus and Harmonia 55 

Callicles's Song 56 

Self-Dependence 58 

Morality 59 

A Summer Night 60 

The Scholar-Gipsy 64 

Tbvrsis 73 

M< norial Verses 82 

v 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Stanzas in Memory of Edward Quillinan 84 

A Southern Night 85 

Rugby Chapel 90 

Stanzas fiom the Grande Chartreuse ; . 97 

Geist's Grave 104 



INTRODUCTION 

I. THE AUTHOR 

Career as Poet. Matthew Arnold was the eldest son of 
Dr. Thomas Arnold, the historian of the Roman republic 
and the famous headmaster of Rugby School. He was born 
Dec. 24, 1822, at Laleham, near Staines, where he now lies 
buried. In 1828 his father went to Rugby; two years later 
Matthew was sent back to Laleham to be the pupil of a 
clerical uncle. After a short period at another school he 
entered Rugby in 1837. He did well here and won- a prize 
for a Byronic poem, "Alaric at Rome," printed in 1840. In 
1841 he entered Balliol College, Oxford, where he had gained 
a classical scholarship. In 1843 ne took the Newdigate prize 
with a poem on Cromwell. He graduated the next year and 
a year later, 1845, was elected to a fellowship at Oriel College. 
Then he taught a little at Rugby, and in 1847 ne became pri- 
vate secretary to the Marquis of Lansdowne, who was in charge 
of the administration of public instruction. In 1851 he was 
appointed an inspector of schools, a post of drudgery which 
he held for many years. The salary at once enabled him to 
marry Miss Frances Lucy Wightman, a daughter of one of 
the judges of the queen's bench. 

Meanwhile, in 1849, Arnold had published over the initial 
"A" a small volume entitled, "The Strayed Reveller and 
Other Poems." This he withdrew from circulation before 
many copies had been sold; but he was not so dissatisfied 



Vlll INTRODUCTION 

with his work as to cease to write poetry. He also studied 
systematically the classics and modern European literatures, 
and took a keen interest in the disturbed politics of the period. 
In 1852 he published his second volume, "Empedocles on 
Etna and Other Poems," of which the title piece and the 
narrative, "Tristram and Iseult," were the chief features. 
These contained many beautiful passages and indicated a 
decided growth of his poetical powers. There were also 
some good lyrics, but the volume, though promising, was not 
sufficiently striking in power or quality to impress the public, 
and the author soon withdrew it from circulation. In 1853, 
however, he made a fresh attempt with "Poems by Matthew 
Arnold, a new edition," which included the choicest pieces of 
his former volumes (except the semi-dramatic "Empedocles 
on Etna"), and presented for the first time two of the best of 
all his more ambitious poems, "Sohrab and Rustum" and 
"The Scholar Gipsy," as well as the exquisitely pathetic 
lyric, "Requiescat." The public responded to this third 
appeal for its favor by calling for new editions in 1854 
and 1857. 

To this volume of 1853 he prefixed a preface which was a 
plea for the establishment of a more classical and severely 
simple taste in poetry. In the words of the late Dr. Richard 
Garnett, it is now to be regarded as "a literary landmark and 
monument of sound criticism. It is also of peculiar interest 
as foreshadowing the character of the literary work with 
which Arnold's name was hereafter to be mainly associated. 
The intellectual defects which the essay denounced [the 
' taste for brilliant phrases and isolated felicities' and want of 
attention to unity, totality, and consistency] were character- 
istically English defects. Soon discovering himself to be at, 
issue with the bulk of his countrymen in every region of': 
opinion, Arnold subsequently undertook the unpopuk - office] 



INTRODUCTION ix 

of detector-general of the intellectual failings of his own nation. 
The cast of his mind was critical rather than constructive, and 
the gradual drying up of his native spring of poetry, at 
no time copious, left him no choice between criticism and 
silence." * 

Two years later, in 1855, Arnold published a second series 
of his "Poems" consisting mainly of previously issued pieces, 
but containing also an important new poem in " Balder Dead," 
another narrative in blank verse. This incursion into Scan- 
dinavian mythology, a field that had attracted Arnold's pro- 
totype, Thomas Gray, has been highly praised by some critics, 
but has never been so popular with the public as " Sohrab and 
Rustum " — partly because it has less human interest and less 
salient attraction of style. His poetical work had now secured 
enough attention, however, to warrant his election in May 
1857, to the far from onerous post of Professor of Poetry at 
Oxford. 

He seemed to be endeavoring to justify the bestowal of this 
academic honor when in 1858 he published his very academic 
"Me rope," a tragedy of the Greek type, which he did not 
reprint until 1885. 

After one term of five years he was re-elected. In 1867, 
— the year he laid down his role of lecturer, — for that is 
what the Professor of Poetry really is, — he published a vol- 
ume of "New Poems," in which he made good his claim to 
rank among the best of English elegists by his beautiful pas- 
toral elegy "Thyrsis," in honor of his dear friend, the poet 
Arthur Hugh Clough, and by the equally beautiful, but less 
elaborate, "A Southern Night," in memory of his brother, 
William Delafield Arnold, director of public instruction in the 

1 From the excellent sketch of Arnold in Volume I of the Supplement 
of the "Dictionary of National Biography," which has been much relied 
upon in the preparation of this section. 



x INTRODUCTION 

Punjab. Another excellent elegy was the finely meditative 
"Rugby Chapel " in memory of his father, written ten years 
before. In 1869 his poems were collected in two volumes. His 
work as a poet was now over save for an occasional tribute to 
a dead friend, like Dean Stanley, or to a pet dog or bird. He 
had become more and more reflective, more and more inclined 
to choose his subjects from moral and intellectual themes, 
especially such as were related to the religious unrest of the 
period. His creative spontaneity declined and his argumen- 
tative combativeness increased in equal measure. Prose 
volumes of literary, theological, even political criticism fol- 
lowed one another in fairly quick succession, and for about 
twenty-five years the public knew him mainly as a man of 
letters who was prone to utter his opinions on many topics 
besides literature. Reprints of his poetry had, however, 
been called for in 1877 and 1885, he had made a popular 
volume of selections from it in 1878, and before his death a 
cordial though not a wide recognition had been given to this 
earlier and more attractive side of his genius. Much of this 
recognition had been won from readers who found in his 
pensive poems of religious longing and unrest a reflection of 
their own spiritual experiences and aspirations. For such 
readers he gradually supplanted Clough as the poet of honest 
doubt and manly resignation. Some readers, however, were 
as much or more attracted by the classical perfection of his 
style. The restraint and comparative coldness that to this 
day have prevented him from rivalling Tennyson in popu- 
larity or Browning in the intense devotion of zealous admirers, 
have given him a rather unique place in the affections of some 
lovers of pure poetry; and since his death it has not been 
uncommon to hear the opinion expressed that in a few genera- 
tions his fame will rest mainly upon his verse. Although this 
is comparatively scanty in amount, it is, on the whoi , re- 



INTRODUCTION xi 

markably even in quality, and should the opinion just cited 
prevail, there will probably be but few Victorian writers who 
will attain a higher final rank. 

Career as Critic. Turning now to Arnold's development as 
a critic, we naturally find that his ten years of lecturing at 
Oxford did much to clarify his thought and formulate his 
ideas. In 1861 he published three lectures, "On Translating 
Homer," which have become a classic in their kind. To 
them he added the next year, "On Translating Homer: 
Last Words." These volumes exhibited well his strength and 
his weakness. They were couched in prose of admirable 
simplicity and polish, but marred by tricks of repetition and 
insistence upon pet ideas — defects that were to grow upon 
him. They were full of singularly illuminating interpreta- 
tion of Homer's transcendent merits and of acute deductions 
with regard to the principles that should govern translators; 
yet they devoted far too much attention to the errors of pre- 
vious translations and displayed on the part of the lecturer a 
too evident delight in his own cleverness and a flippant disre- 
gard for the feelings of others. 

From the first of his critical writings to the last, though in 
varying degrees, these exceptional merits and distressing 
faults are present. Arnold had a singular gift for perceiving 
and stating the essential principles that underlie the forms of 
literature, especially poetry, that appeal most widely and 
deeply through a considerable period of time. In other words, 
he was born to comprehend and love and to make others com- 
prehend and love the classics, whether ancient or modern. 
With authors and books of more individual quality, with 
many forms of romance, with mediaeval literature on the one 
hand and much current literature on the other, with the 
lighter varieties of verse and prose, he was not so sure of his 
critical touch. He was not entirely catholic in his tastes, and 



xii INTRODUCTION 

he applied his formulas and rules too rigorously. A good 
example of his limitations is seen somewhat later in his career 
in his treatment of Shelley's poetry. He undoubtedly ren- 
dered a great service by protesting against the undiscrimi- 
nating laudation of their idol indulged in by many of that 
poet's worshippers; but he would probably not have shown 
such scant sympathy with the exquisite phases of Shelley's 
lyrical gift if he had not, unconsciously perhaps, been too much 
influenced by his own formula that poetry is a criticism of life 
— a formula which is of great utility when the work of his 
favorite poet Wordsworth is in question. 

Then again Arnold continually forgot that over -emphasis 
of one's own views and sarcasm and banter of one's oppo- 
nents are often fatal to one's success as an advocate, and, 
despite his constant praise of disinterestedness as essential to 
sound criticism, Arnold was a born advocate and contro- 
versialist. At bottom he was simple and modest; outwardly 
he seemed jaunty and cocksure. He discussed, with great 
charm and much insight it is true, such topics as the " Study. 
of Celtic Literature" (1S67), on which he could not speak 
with much authority, and he thus exposed himself to attacks 
by men who, although his inferiors in many respects, were 
able to detract from his legitimate influence upon public 
opinion. Tn 1865, however, the first series of his "Essays in 
Criticism," with its free, unpedantic discussion of the char- 
acters and writings of men as far apart in time and genius as 
Marcus Aurelius and Heinrich Heine, placed Arnold at the 
very head of living English critics, and his utterances, on lit- 
erature at least, were received with a respect which enabled 
him to modify English criticism to a marked degree. Hence- 
forward it was to be less and less possible for Englishmen to 
be blatantly insular and supercilious with regard to the eccen- 
tricities of much of their own literary work, and to be con' en t- 



INTRODUCTION xin 

edly ignorant of the achievements of other nations. If he had 
performed only this service, Matthew Arnold would have been 
entitled to the fame of a public benefactor, notwithstanding 
the fact that his plain indebtedness to such writers as Sainte- 
Beuve and Heine prevents our ranking him among the world's 
most original critics. But he did more than convince some 
of his countrymen that they should be careful not to foster 
"philistine" and "barbarian" tastes; he gave them sound 
critical principles, tersely and brilliantly phrased, which they 
could apply with good results in their own reading. He did 
not dazzle them with his own brilliance and leave them com- 
paratively helpless, as Lowell was too apt to do; instead, to 
change the metaphor, he set their feet on the right path and 
put a staff in their hands. 

Meanwhile in his capacity as an educational official he had 
been doing Englishmen a more practical service. Not only 
had he been making valuable reports on English • schools 
(collected after his death), but he had been inspecting French 
and German systems of instruction and publishing the con- 
clusions to which he had come. " Popular Education of 
France" appeared in 1861, "A French Eton," in 1S64, and 
"Schools and Universities on the Continent," in 186S. 

The next year he published "Culture and Anarchy," 
essays which had previously appeared in " The Cornhill Maga- 
zine." This is the most effective of all his attacks on British 
philistinism in the interests of culture, or, to use the phrase 
which was inseparably attached to his name, of " sweetness and 
light." Tn his sprightly "Friendship's Garland" (1871) he 
carried the war more specifically into the domain of politics, 
where, as his posthumous correspondence proved, he was some- 
what out of his element. The year before he had made a still 
rasher incursion into the field of religion and theology. Al- 
though a small section of his countrymen were ready to wel- 



XIV INTRODUCTION 

come his attempts to popularize the results of German and 
French study and speculation upon Biblical history and kindred 
topics — matters on which he was plainly not an expert, — many 
of his readers were shocked by his unorthodox views, and 
some roundly denounced him as a dangerous foe to religion. 
Nevertheless "St. Paul and Protestantism" (1870), "Litera- 
ture and Dogma" (1873), "God and the Bible" (1875), and 
"Last Essays on Church and State" (1877), were helpful in 
breaking down prejudices and dissipating narrow-minded 
suspicions, and, however ephemeral in themselves, were appa- 
rently productive of lasting good. 

Later Years. Despite the drudgery of the position, Arnold I 
continued to serve as an inspector of schools until 1883, when 
he was enabled to retire, because Mr. Gladstone, to his sur- 
prise, conferred upon him a pension of two hundred and fifty 
pounds. It was surely well deserved ; but whether, if it had : 
been given earlier, Arnold would have done more and better 
work in poetry and criticism is a matter no one can decide. 
He had lived some time in London, then near Harrow, and in 
1873 had settled at Cobham. His family was a drain upon 
him, but his domestic life gave him much happiness, despite 
the deaths of three children and disappointments such as come 
to many parents. During his later years he published sev- 
eral volumes of criticism, "Mixed Essays" (1879), "Lish 
Essays and Others" (1882), and " Discourses in America " 
(1885). The last named contained the three lectures hedeliv- 
ered during his first visit to the United States in 1883-84. 
He came again in 1886, for his eldest daughter had married 
and made her home in New York. He was a fairly frequent 
contributor to the magazines and also edited several volumes 
of selections, which helped to spread his critical principles I 
and the fame of favorite authors. Among these compilations 
were the " Six Chief Lives" (1878), from Dr. Johnson's " Lives 



INTRODUCTION XV 

of the Poets," and selections from Wordsworth (1879), Byron 
(1881), and Burke (1881). 

When he was at the height of his fame and his influence 
the world was suddenly shocked by the news of his death. He 
had gone to Liverpool to welcome his daughter home from 
America, and there he died of heart disease, on April 15, 1888. 
He was buried at the churchyard of All Saints at Laleham, 
his birthplace, which gives the title to Mr. William Watson's 
touching poem to his memory. The same year some of his 
essays, including those on Gray and Keats, first published in 
Ward's " English Poets," ! were gathered under the title, 
'•'Essays in Criticism, Second Series." In 1895 two volumes 
of his letters, somewhat disappointing to his admirers though 
illustrating well his geniality and his deep love of nature, were 
edited by Mr. G. W. E. Russell. Uniform editions of his 
writings have been for twenty years attainable in America, 
and besides numerous essays and studies, 2 three critical biog- 
raphies have been devoted to him, one by Professor Saints- 
bury, in " Modern English Writers" (1899), one by Mr. Herbert 
Paul, in the new series of the "English Men of Letters" 
(1902), and one by Mr. G. W. E. Russell, in "Literary Lives " 

Mr. Humphry Ward married Matthew Arnold's niece, the well- 
known authoress of "Robert Elsmere" and other novels. 

2 Among these may be named "Victorian Poets," by E. C. Stedman 
(1885), "The Greater Victorian Poets," by Hugh Walker (1895), an d 
"Matthew Arnold," by W. H. Dawson (1904), and essays by George E. 
Woodberry (Warner's Library), John M. Robertson ("Modern Human- 
ists"), Frederic Harrison ("Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill," etc.), Lewis E. 
Gates ("Three Studies in Literature"), W. C. Brownell ("Victorian 
Prose Masters"), George Saintsbury ( Craik's" English Prose," Vol. V), 
T. H. Ward (Ward's "English Poets," Vol. IV, enlarged edition), Augus- 
tine Birrell ("Res Judicata"), J. Burroughs ("Indoor Studies"), W. 
N. Guthrie ("Modern Poet Prophets"), and W. E. Henley ("Views and 
Reviews"). 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

(1904). A thoroughly satisfactory life is still a desideratum. 
There is an excellent bibliography of Arnold's writings by T. 
B. Smart (1892). 

II. THE POEM 

General Characteristics. " Sohrab and Rustum " was written 
in 1853, and published the same year. It speedily attained the 
popularity it has kept, ranking perhaps only below "Thyrsis" 
among its author's poems. As a brief narrative in verse it is 
not clearly surpassed by the work of any other modern English 
poet, although, as we shall see later, it seems to lie open in a 
slight degree to the charge of factitiousness, especially in its 
use or abuse of the Homeric simile. But whether or not it isl 
somewhat academic and overwrought in tone, " Sohrab and'; 
Rustum " is a moving poem, the pathetic close of which seems 
to appeal to some readers even more than the simpler poign- 
ancy of Priam's interview with Achilles. It has also the' 
advantage of succinctness; yet within its brief compass of] 
eight hundred and ninety-two lines we find good character- 
ization, excellent dramatic dialogue, and fine descriptive 
passages giving the proper atmosphere. In short, all the 
essentials of an effective story are present, and there is, more- 
over, an appeal to our noblest and most primitive emotions 
couched in an adequate style." x 

The Sources and the Historical Setting. The story of " Sohrab 
and Rustum " is the best, known and is regarded as the most 
moving episode in the " Shah-Namah," or Book of Kings, of) 
the Persian poet Firdausi. This poet, who lived about the' 
year 1000 A.D., composed the history of Persia, for a period 
of thirty-six centuries, in a poem of sixty thousand couplets.. 
He is regarded as the Homer of Persia, and his poem is thfl 

1 "The Sick King in Bokhara " is another poem in which Arnold chosd 
an oriental theme and setting. 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

great national epic. Parts have been translated into English 
by James Atkinson, 1 whose version of the present story will 
be found in Dole and Walker's " Flowers of Persian Poets. '^ 
The episode, called by Sir John Malcolm 3 an "extraordinary 
and affecting tale," may be summarized from the translation 
in order to show the difference between the treatment by 
the modern poet and his original. 

Rustem, Roostem, or Rustum, as his name is variously 
anglicized, while hunting in the wilds of Turan, wearied of 
'his sport and fell asleep, leaving his famous horse, Ruksh, to 
wander at his will. The steed was stolen by a band of ma- 
rauders, whom, waking, Rustum pursued until he reached 
I the palace of the king of Samengan. Here the chief met 
J with royal welcome, recovered his horse, and, becoming 
enamored of the king's daughter, Temineh, married her. , 
Before the birth of his son, Sohrab, Rustum, eager for new 
{adventures, left the court, returned to Seistan, his father's 
home, and was seen no more in Samengan. 

Sohrab, grown to manhood and renowned in arms more than 
all the rest of the youths of Turan, determined to seek his father. 
His request to lead an army against the Persians was gladiy 
welcomed by Afrasiab, the king of Turan, because, craftily 
thought the latter, if Sohrab can slay Rustum and if I can 
then dispose of him, Persia will lie defenceless at my feet. 
■Accordingly Sohrab set out at the head of an army, crossed 
the borders of Persia, defeated a host sent against him, cap- 
tured its leader, Hujir, and laid siege to the frontier fortress. 

Here he was encamped when the main host of the Persians, 
led by Rustum, Gudurz, and other famous chiefs, appeared 

1 "Sohrab, a poem," Calcutta, 1814. 

2 New York, 1901, 2 vols. 

3 "History of Persia," London, 1829, Vol. I, p. 27. 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

against him. Rusturn had with difficulty been induced to 
take the field. He had been dilatory in obeying the com- 
mands of the weak and inconstant Persian monarch, Kaus, 
and that king had threatened him with impaling. The result 
of the dispute was that Rustum would not march till Kaus 
had conciliated him. Once in the field, however, he became 
the true leader of the Persian host. As a spy he penetrated 
the Turanian camp, saw and admired their leader, and picked 
him out for his special antagonist. Sohrab, meanwhile, had 
made inquiry about his father, sure from the mien of one 
chieftain and his valiant horse that the latter must be among 
the Persian host, but he had been deceived by the astute 
Hujir. 

When the battle joined, Sohrab and Rustum met, and, each 
pausing to admire the other, Sohrab asked if his opponent were 
not his father. On Rustum's denial, for no apparent cause, 
they fell to combat and fought ferociously, until Sohrab, with 
a well-delivered blow from his mace, stunned his opponent. 
The contending armies rushed in and terminated the duel, 
but before ' darkness put an end to the fighting, the chiefs 
agreed to meet in single combat the next day. When the 
morning came they wrestled, and after a fierce encounter, 
Sohrab threw his father. The Persian chief, in the face of 
Sohrab's dagger, had recourse to a stratagem : " By the Per- 
sian law," he said, "a chief may fight till he is twice over- 
thrown." The chivalrous Sohrab, to the dismay of the Tura- 
nian host, released his mighty enemy, and darkness closed 
the conflict. That night Rustum prayed for success in the 
conflict of the next day, and his prayer was heard. 

When they met on the morrow Sohrab reproached Rustum 
for his deception of the day before, but the latter answered 
with calm and confident disdain. Again they grappled, 
Sohrab was thrown, and, lest he should escape, was immedi- 



INTRODUCTION xix 

ately stabbed. In his death agony he bade his foe beware 
the wrath of his father Rustum, who would surely exact ven- 
geance for his son. Distraught, the champion disclosed his 
identity and demanded proof that Sohrab was his son. There- 
upon Sohrab showed the gold bracelet that Rustum had given 
his wife to place upon the arm of his unborn child. At the 
sight Rustum became frantic with grief, and long after the 
sun had set remained upon the ground wailing and tearing 
his hair. The hostile armies, rushing in to avenge their 
chiefs, were quieted by the dying Sohrab, and Rustum him- 
self bade the war to cease. He would have slain Hujir, 
would have stabbed himself, but was prevented by his friends. 
He besought King Kaus for healing medicine for his son, 
but that mean-spirited monarch, angry with Rustum because 
he had been worsted in the former fights, refused all aid, and 
Sohrab breathed his last. 

Grief-stricken and disdaining the aid of the fickle king, 
proffered now too late, Rustum bore home to Seistan the body 
of his son. Here Sohrab was publicly mourned and laid to 
rest. When the news reached Tamineh she was beside her- 
self. "Nothing," says Malcolm, 1 "can be more beautiful 
than the picture of the distraction of the mother of Sohrab, 
who set fire to her palace, meaning to perish in the flames, 
but was prevented by her attendants. They could not, how- 
ever, console her. She became quite frantic; her wild joy was 
to clothe herself in the bloody garment in which he had been 
slain; to kiss the forehead of his favorite horse; to draw his 
bow; wield his lance, his sword, his mace; and, at last, to use 
the words of the poet, 'she died, and her soul fled to that of 
her heroic son.'" 

The episode of Sohrab and Rustum, however affecting, is 

1 "History of Persia," Vol. I, p. 28, note c. Arnold furnished " Sohrab 
and Rustum" with a note taken from Malcolm. 



XX INTRODUCTION 

but a detail in the career of the great legendary hero of Persia. 
A good account of the deeds of this Persian Achilles or Her- 
cules is to be found in chapters ii and iii of Malcolm's "His- 
tory of Persia," already referred to. Even as an infant, Rustum 
was renowned for his strength and voracity, and for upwards 
of four hundred years, until his death through treachery, he 
was the main bulwark of Persia against foreign foes. The 
chief and most constant of these was Afrasiab, king of Turan 
or Tartary, of whose subjects Rustum is said to have destroyed 
eleven hundred and sixty in his maiden battle. His encounter 
with Sohrab, which happened rather early in his career, took 
place in one of the frequent encounters between the Persians 
and the dwellers beyond the Oxus. It occurred in the reign 
of Kai Kaoos, or Kaus, not, as Arnold has it, in that of his 
grandson, the great Kai Khoosroo, and was considerably be- 
fore the time of Cyrus the Great, with whom Kai Khoosroo 
has sometimes been identified. In Malcolm's history most of 
the heroes named in Arnold's poem are spoken of, some at 
considerable length; Peran-Wisa, for example, the Nestor of 
the Tartars, had a long and honorable career. 

It is, in general, interesting to compare the Persian epic 
with Arnold's poem. In the latter, deeds of arms are of com- 
paratively less importance than in the "Shah-Namah," and 
more stress is laid on feeling, particularly the filial affection of 
Sohrab, which causes him to lower his guard to receive his 
death-wound when his father shouts his war cry. So too the 
fight is of shorter duration, and much greater space, com- 
paratively, is given to the solemnity of nature. 

Geographical Setting. The geographical setting of "Sohrab 
and Rustum" may most easily be understood by taking the Oxus 
as a base line. That river, which in the time of Rustum formed 
the northeastern boundary of Persia, rises in the high table- 
lands of Pamere, a district of Turkestan, almost directly north 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

of the famous Vale of Cashmere, and northeast of modern 
Afghanistan, from which it is separated by the Indian Cau- 
casus, or Hindu Koosh Mountains. Thence the Oxus flows 
in a northwesterly direction for about a thousand miles into 
the Aral Sea, which it enters by a delta, " shorn and parcelled " 
out. Khiva, the city, is on the Oxus, not far from this delta, 
and the khanate of the same name is probably identical with 
Karissim, "the hushed Chorasmian waste," and nearby are 
Kipchak and Orgunje. North of the Oxus are the famous 
i cities of Samarkand and Bokhara, in the neighborhood of 
which are the mouthless desert rivers, Moorghab, Tejend, and 
; Kohik, and east of these cities Ferghana and, in Pamere, the 
\ region of -Kara-Kul, noted for its pasturage. To the north and 
1 west also are the other places whence the Tartar host came, — 
; the plains of the Jaxartes, or Syr Daria, flowing like the Oxus 
j into the Aral Sea, the steppes of the Kuzzaks or Cossacks, 
i north of the Aral, and the plains of Kirghiz. South of the 
| Oxus and the Attruck, or modern Atrek, which empties into 
the Caspian Sea, lay Persia, comprising the modern country 
of that name and probably the countries directly to the east, 
Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and that part of India west of 
the Indus. In the extreme northwest, south of the European 
Caucasus and east of the Caspian, was the province of Ader- 
beijan, now Azer-beijan. Thence, southeast by some eight 
hundred miles, in the east-central part of modern Persia, is 
the Khorassan, "the Land of the Sun," a comparatively 
desert province, and still further in the same direction, near 
the joining of modern Persia, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan, 
is the home of Zal and Rustum, Seistan, watered by the inland 
stream, Helmund, flowing into the lake of Zirrah. Casbin 
and the Elburz range are south of the Caspian, not far from 
Teheran, the capital of modern Persia. Cabool, or Kabul, 
is in the east of Afghanistan, of which it is the chief city; Bah- 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

rein, or Menama, is an island in the Persian Gulf, noted for 
its pearl fisheries; and the Hyphasis and Ilydaspes, "Indian 
streams," are the Beas and the Thelam of the modern Punjab. 
In general the geography may readily be understood by refer- 
ence to any good atlas, and the pupil should certainly not be 
expected by his teacher to master all the details, since a poem 
is to be enjoyed rather than to be regarded as a task to be 
studied. 

Some Stylistic Features. One of the most striking stylistic 
features of " Sohrab and Rustum " is the repetition of words., 
In the first two paragraphs, for example, tent appears seven 
times, and the same precise effect may be noted in the use of 
such words as snow, morn, gloom, and many others. A strik- 
ing instance of the way these words play, as it were, into each 
other, perhaps to give a firmly knit texture, may be found in 
the following passage (11. 291-318). 

And Rustum to the Persian front advanced, 
And Sohrab arm'd in Haman's tent, and came. 
And as afield the reapers cut a swarth 
Down through the middle of a rich man's corn, 
And on each side are squares of standing corn, 
And in the midst a stubble, short and bare — 
So on each side were squares of men, with spears 
Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand. 
And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast 
His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw 
Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came. 
As some rich woman, on a winter's morn, 
Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge 
Who with numb blacken'd fingers makes her fire — 
At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn, 
When the frost flowers the whiten'd window-panes — 
And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts 
Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum eyed 
The unknown adventurous youth, who from afar 
Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth 
All the most valiant chiefs; long he perused 
His spirited air, and wonder'd who he was. 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

For very young he seem'd, tenderly reared ; 

Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight, 

Which in a queen's secluded garden throws 

Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf, 

By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound — 

So slender Sohrab seem'd, so softly rear'd. 

The second half of this quotation illustrates another rather 
common trick of Arnold's verse, which he perhaps derived 
from Milton. It is a sort of intensified or reinforced redupli- 
cation, the phrase in its repeated form having been added to 
and often otherwise modified. Note, for example, the phrase 
on a winter's mom (1. 302), with the addition of starlit in the 
repetition (1. 305). Another example occurs in the passage 
immediately following that quoted (11. 322-324). 

thou young man, the air o, heaven is soft, 
And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold! 
Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave. 

In 11. 393-396 we find another: 

And whether it will heave us up to land, 

Or whether it will roll us out to sea, 

Bark out to sea, to the deep waves of death, 

We know not, and no search will make us know. 

And in 11. 723-724 still another: 

1 came, and like the wind I go away — 
Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind. 

These and other passages are evidently suggestive of Milton's 
use of the device, as in Lycidas, 11. 37-38, 

But, O, the heavy change, now thou art gone, 
Now thou art gone, and never must return. 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

and in Samson Agonistes, 11. 12, 

A little onward lend thy guiding hand 
To these dark steps, a little farther on. 

passages evidently more emotional, more dramatic, and less 
descriptive than Arnold's. 

The long quotation above (11. 289-318) also contains two 
of the rather elaborate similes in which the poem abounds. 
Arnold in these figures evidently had his eye fixed on Homer 
— too firmly fixed, some may feel, for his similes are too nu- 
merous and studied not to detract from the spontaneity of his 
poem, although they certainly help to distract the reader's 
attention and thus to render bearable the poignancy ot the 
situation. Some of them seem to show, likewise, the influ- 
ence of Milton. The general tone of the poem, however, 
would appear to be more modern than Milton and of course 
far more modern than Homer. Thus the words with which 
Sohrab wails out his life, following the verse (1. 827) 

Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied: — 

I 

are in the spirit and tone of those uttered by Arthur, at his 

passing, in Tennyson's " Morte d' Arthur," and are an expres- 
sion of modern rather than of antique sadness. It should also 
be pointed out that nobly impressive though " Sohrab and 
Rustum " must be pronounced to be, it is far from displaying 
the perfect artistic poise, the ineffable simplicity and charm, and 
the swift, strong rhythmical movement that make the Homeric 
poems unique among the world's classics. It is equally plain 1 
that, good as Arnold's blank verse was, especially in the now 
famous closing passage, he could not handle Milton's mighty 
instrument any more than the suitors in the Odyssey could 
bend Ulysses' bow. The majestic roll and involution of Mil-i 
ton's verse, so inseparably bound up with his power to attain 



INTRODUCTION XXV 

the sublime, seem to be unattainable by his successors. This is 
only to say that, while, as we have seen, " Sohrab and Rustum " 
is a moving and dignified episode told in excellent verse, it 
does not attain to epic grandeur any more than, in the nature 
of the case, it could have attained to epic sweep. 1 

1 It seems fairtoquote here the late Dr. Garnett's less restrained praise. 
In the article already quoted he writes of " Sohrab and Rustum " as 
"noble and affecting in subject, and so simple in its perfect unity of action 
as to leave no room for digression, while fully admitting the adornments 
of description and elaborate simile. These are introduced with exquisite 
judgment, and, while greatly heightening the poetical beauty of the piece, 
are never allowed to divert attention from the progress of the main action, 
which culminates in a situation of unsurpassable pathos." 

Mr. Stedman, in his " Victorian Poets," says that "judged as works 
of art, 'Sohrab and Rustum' and 'Balder Dead' really are majestic 
poems." He adds that the blank verse is "always in 'the grand 
manner.' " 

Mr. Saintsbury ("Matthew Arnold," p. 37) finds magnificence only 
in the closing passage. The blank verse he describes as being "of a 
partly but not wholly Miltonic stamp, very carefully written." It is 
quite plain that he scarcely regards Arnold as fully successful in catching 
the manner of his Greek master, or masters. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

AN EPISODE 

And the first gray of morning fill'd the east, 

And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream. 

But all the Tartar camp along the stream 

Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep; 

Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long 5 

He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed ; 

But when the gray dawn stole into his tent, 

He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword, 

And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent,. . 

And went abroad into the cold wet fog, 10 

Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's tent. 

Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, (which stood 
Clustering like beehives on the low flat strand 
Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o'erflow 
When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere;} 1 

Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand, 
And to a hillock came, a little back 
From the stream's brink — the spot where first a boat, 

1. And. Cf. the Biblical use of this conjunction to introduce an 
episode. 

2. Oxus. Now called Amoo Darya. For this and other geographical 
names, see the Introduction. 

5. This superfluous use of the pronoun is not tolerated in prose, 
and thus serves to differentiate the style and heighten the poetic effect. 

11. Peran-Wisa was a Turanian chief, commanding the Tartar King 
Afrasiab's army. For this and other proper names, see the Introduction. 

1 



2 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land. 

The men of former times had crown'd the top 

With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now 

The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent, 

A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread. 

And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood 

Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent, 

And found the old man sleeping on his bed 

Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms. 

And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step 

Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep; 

And he rose quickly on one arm, and said : — 30 

"Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn. 
Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?" 

But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said : — 
"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I. 
The sun is not yet risen, and the foe 35 

Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie 
Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee. 
For so did King Afrasiab bid me seek 
Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son, 
In Samarcand, before the army march'd; 40 

And I will tell thee what my heart desires. 
Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan first 
I came among the Tartars and bore arms, 
I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown, 
At my boy's years, the courage of a man. 45 

This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on 
The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world, 
And beat the Persians back on every field, 

25. thick piled. If the poet had written thick-piled, or thick, piled, 
would his meaning have been changed? 
33. Is this line metrically satisfactory? 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 3 

I seek one man, one man, and one alone — 

Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet, 50 

Should one day greet, upon some well-fought field, 

His not unworthy, not inglorious son. 

So I long hoped, but him I never find. 

Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask. 

Let the two armies rest to-day; but I 55 

Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords 

To meet me, man to man; if I prevail, 

Rustum will surely hear it ; if I fall — 

Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin. 

Dim is the rumor of a common fight, 60 

Where host meets host, and many names are sunk; 

But of a single combat fame speaks clear." 

He spoke; and Peran-Wisa took the hand 
Of the young man in his, and sigh'd, and said: — 

"O Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine! . 65 

Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs, 
And share the battle's common chance with us 
Who love thee, but must press forever first, 
In single fight incurring single risk, 

To find a father thou hast never seen? 70 

That were far best, my son, to stay with us 
Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war, 
And when 'tis truce, then in Afrasiab's towns. 
But, if this one desire indeed rules all, 
To seek out Rustum — seek him not through fight! 75 
Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms, 
O Sohrab, carry an un wounded son! 
But far hence seek him, for he is not here. 
For now it is not as when I was young, 

60. common, general. 

71. That. Notice the unusual and somewhat poetical employment of 
this word. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

When Rustum was in front of every fray; 80 

But now he keeps apart, and sits at home, 

In Seistan, with Zal, his father old. 

Whether that his own mighty strength at last 

Feels the abhorr'd approaches of old age, 

Or in some quarrel with the Persian King. 85 

There go ! — Thou wilt not ? Yet my heart forbodes 

Danger or death awaits thee on this field. 

Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost 

To us; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace 

To seek thy father, not seek single fights 90 

In vain; — but who can keep the lion's cub 

From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son ? 

Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires." 

So said he, and dropp'd Sohrab's hand, and left 
His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay; 95 

And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat 
He pass'd, and tied his sandals on his feet, 
And threw a white cloak round him, and he took 
In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword; 
And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap, 100 

Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul; 
And raised the curtain of his tent, and call'd 
His herald to his side, and went abroad. 

The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog 
From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands. 105 

And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed 
Into the open plain; so Haman bade — 
Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled 
The host, and still was in his lusty prime. 
From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd ; 1 1« 
(As when some gray November morn the files, 
In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 5 

Stream over Casbin and the southern slopes 
Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries, 
Or some fro re Caspian reed bed, southward bound 115 
For the warm Persian sea-board 4- so they stream'd. 
The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard, 
First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears; 
Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara come 
And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares. 120 

• Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns of the south, 
The Tukas, and the lances of Salore, 
And those from Attruck and the Caspian sands; 
Light men and on light steeds, who only drink 
The .acrid milk of camels, and their wells. 125 

And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came 
From far, and a more doubtful service own'd; 
The Tartars of Ferghana, from the banks 
Of the Jaxartes, men with scanty beards 
And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes 130 
Who roam o'er Kipchak and the northern waste, 
Kalmucks and unkempt Kuzzaks, tribes who stray 
Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes, 
Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere; 
These all filed out from camp into the plain. 135 

And on the other side the Persians form'd; — 
First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seem'd, 
The Ilyats of Khorassan; and behind, 
The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot, 
MarshaPd battalions bright in burnish'd steel. 140 

But Peran-Wisa with his herald came, 

US- frore, frozen. Cf. the old English froren. Arnold may have 
aught the word from Milton, whom he is almost certainly imitating in 
:he string of proper nouns. Cf. " Paradise Regained," III., 269-346. 
127. Acknowledged a less steady allegiance. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front, 

And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks. 

And when Ferood, who led the Persians, saw 

That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back, 145 

He took his spear, and to the front he came, 

And check 'd his ranks, and fix'd them where they stood. 

And the old Tartar came upon the sand 

Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said : — 

"Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear! 150 

Let there be truce between the hosts to-day. 
But choose a champion from the Persian lords 
To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man." 
(As, in the country, on a morn in June, 
When the dew glistens on the pearled ears, 155 

A shiver runs through the deep corn for joy 4— 
So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said, 
A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran 
Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved. 

■ But as a troop of peddlers, from Cabool, 160 

Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus, 
That vast sky-neighboring mountain of milk snow; 
Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass 
Long flocks of traveling birds dead on the snow, 
Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves 165 
Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries — 
In single file they move, and stop their breath, 
For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging snows) — 
So the pale Persians held their breath with fear. 

And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up 17J 

To counsel; Gudurz and Zoarrah came, 
And Feraburz, who ruled the Persian host 



154. Cf. " Thyrsis," stanza 6. 

156. corn, not maize, but grain — wheat, barley, etc. 



i 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 7 

Second, and was the uncle of the King; 

These came and counsel'd, and then Gudurz said: — 

"Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up, 175 
Yet champion have we none to match this youth. 
He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart. 
But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits 
And sullen, and. has pitch'd his tents apart. 
Him will I seek, and carry to his ear 180 

The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name. 
Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight. 
Stand forth the while, and take their challenge up." 

So spake he ; and Ferood stood forth and cried : — 
" Old 'man, be it agreed as thou hast said ! 185 

Let Sohrab arm, and we will find a man." 

He spake: and Peran-Wisa turn'd, and strode 
Back through the opening squadrons to his tent. 
But through the anxious Persians Gudurz ran, 
And cross'd the camp which lay behind, and reach'd, 190 
Out on the sands beyond it, Rustum's tents. 
Of scarlet cloth they were, and glittering gay, 
Just pitch'd; the high pavilion in the midst 
Was Rustum's, and his men lay camp'd around. 
And Gudurz enter'd Rustum's tent, and found 195 

Rustum; his morning meal was done, but still 
The table stood before him, charged with food — 
A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread, 
And dark green melons; and there Rustum sate 
Listless, and held a falcon on his wrist, 200 

And play'd with it; but Gudurz came and stood 
Before him; and he look'd, and saw him stand, 

179. Cf. the conduct of Achilles in the Iliad. 
199. sate. Obsolete, and so poetical, for sat. 



8 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

And with a cry sprang up and dropp'd the bird, 
And greeted Gudurz with both hands, and said : — 

"Welcome! these eyes could see no better sight. 205 
What news? but sit down first, and eat and drink." 

But Gudurz stood in the tent-door, and said : — 
"Not now! a time will come to eat and drink, 
But not to-day; to-day has other needs. 
The armies are drawn out, and stand at gaze; 210 

For from the Tartars is a challenge brought 
To pick a champion from the Persian lords 
To fight their champion — and thou know'st his name -I 
Sohrab men call him, but his birth is hid. 
O Rustum, like thy might is this young man's! 215 

He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart; 
And he is young, and Iran's chiefs are old, 
Or else too weak; and all eyes turn to thee. 
Come down and help us, Rustum, or we lose!" 

He spoke; but Rustum answer'd with a smile: — 220 
"Go to! if Iran's chiefs are old, then I 
Am older; if the young are weak, the King 
Errs strangely; for the King, for Kai Khosroo, 
Himself is young, and honors younger men, 
And lets the aged molder to their graves. 
Rustum he loves no more, but loves the young — 
The young may rise at Sohrab's vaunts, not I. 
For what care I, though all speak Sohrab's fame? 
For would that I myself had such a son, 
And not that one slight helpless girl I have — 
A son so famed, so brave, to send to war, 

217. The two brothers Iran and Tur were the mythological 
genitors of the Persians (Iranians) and the Tartars (Turanians). 
221. Go to ! Biblical. 
230. Cf. 11. 609-611. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 9 

And I to tarry with the snow-hair'd Zal, 

My father, whom the robber Afghans vex, 

And clip his borders short, and drive his herds, 

And he has none to guard his weak old age. 235 

There would I go, and hang my armor up, 

And with my great name fence that weak old man, 

And spend the goodly treasures I have got, 

And rest my age, and hear of Sohrab's fame, 

And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings, 240 

And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no more." 

He spoke, and smiled ; and Gudurz made reply : — 
"What then, O Rustum, will men say to this, 
When-Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks 
Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks, 245 
Hidest thy face? Take heed lest men should say: 
' Like some old miser, Rustum hoards his fame, 
And shuns to peril it with younger men."' 

And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply: — 
"O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words? 250 
Thou knowest better words than this to say. 
What is one more, one less, obscure or famed, 
Valiant or craven, young or old, to me? 
Are not they mortal, am not I myself? 
But who for men of naught would do great deeds? 255 
Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame! 
But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms; 
Let not men say of Rustum, he was match'd 
In single fight with any mortal man." 

He spoke, and frown'd; and Gudurz turn'd, and ran 260 
Back quickly through the camp in fear and joy — 

232. Zal was born with white hair, an omen which caused his father 
o expose him on a mountain, whence he was brought back by a mar- 
vellous bird. Cf. 1. 679. 



IO MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Fear at his wrath, but joy that Rustum came.i/ 
But Rustum strode to his tent-door, and call'd 
His followers in, and bade them bring his arms, 
And clad himself in steel; the arms he chose 265 

Were plain, and on his shield was no device, 
Only his helm was rich, inlaid with gold, 
And, from the fluted spine atop, a plume 
Of horsehair waved, a scarlet horsehair plume. 
So arm'd, he issued forth; and Ruksh, his horse, 270 

Follow'd him like a faithful hound at heel — 
Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the earth, i 
The horse, whom Rustum on a foray once 
Did in Bokhara by the river find 

A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home, 275 

And rear'd him; a bright bay, with lofty crest, 
Dight with a saddle-cloth of broider'd green 
Crusted with gold, and on the ground were work'd 
All beasts of chase, all beasts which hunters know. 
So follow'd, Rustum left his tents, and cross'd 
The camp, and to the Persian host appear'd. 
And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts 
HaiPd; but the Tartars knew not who he was. 
'And dear as the wet diver to the eyes 
Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore, 
By sandy Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf, 
Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night, 
Having made up his tale of precious pearls, 

262. That, because. Cf. 1. 83. 

266. Note other touches suggestive of Western chivalry. 

270. Cf. other famous horses of epic and history and romance, — 
Xanthus (of Achilles, in the Iliad) Alexander's Bucephalus, the Cid's 
Babieca; Don Quixote's Rosinante is a burlesque of these. 

277. Dight, decked; used by Milton in "L'Allegro." 

288. taUj count or reckoning; also used in "L'AUegro." 




SOHRAB AND RUSTUM II 

7 

(Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands — J \ 
So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came. 

And Rustum to the Persian front advanced, 
And Sohrab arm'd in Hainan's tent, and came. 
And/as afield the reapers cut a swath 
Down through the middle of a rich man's corn, 
And on each side are squares of standing corn, 295 

And in the midst a stubble, short and bare}— 
So on each side were squares of men, with spears 
Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand. 
And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast 
His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw 300 

Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came. 
(As some rich woman, on a winter's morn, 
Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge 
Who with numb, blacken 'd fingers makes her fire — 

, At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn, 305 

When the frost flowers the whiten'd window-panes — 
And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts 
Of that poor drudge may be - / so Rustum eyed 
The unknown adventurous youth, who from afar 
Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth 310 

All the most valiant chiefs; long he perused 
His spirited air, and wonder'd who he was. 
For very young he seem'd, tenderly rear'd; 
Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight, 
Which in a queen's secluded garden throws 315 

Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf, 
By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound — 
So slender Sohrab seem'd, so softly rear'd. 

308. It is almost needless to say that this simile is not in the 
original, and that it is modern and Westernjn tone. Its homeliness, 
however, is not necessarily a defect, but that of the toilet in 11. 96-101 
possibly is. 



12 MATTHEW ARNOLD 



And a deep pity enter'd Rustum's soul 

As he beheld him coming; and he stood, 320 

And beckon'd to him with his hand, and said: — 

" O thou young man, the air of heaven is soft, 
And warm, and pleasant ; but the grave is cold ! . ' 
Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave. 
Behold me! I am vast, and clad in iron, 325 

And tried; and I have stood on many a field 
Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe — 
Never was that field lost, or that foe saved. 
O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death? 
Be govern'd! quit the Tartar host, and come 330 

To Iran, and be as my son to me, 
And fight beneath my banner till I die! 
There are no youths in Iran brave as thou." 

So he spake, mildly; Sohrab heard his voice, 
The mighty voice of Rustum, and he saw 335 

His giant figure planted on the sand, 
Sole, like some single tower, which a chief 
Hath builded on the waste in former years 
Against the robbers; and he saw that head, 
Streak'd with its first gray hairs; — hope filled his soul, 340 
And he ran forward and embraced his knees, 
And clasp'd his hand within his own, and said: — 

"O by thy father's head! by thine own soul! 
Art thou not Rustum? speak! art thou not he?" 

But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth, 345 

And turn'd away, and spake to his own soul : — 



V 



328. Note the alliteration, especially where it strengthens the 
antithesis. 

331. This line will prove unsatisfactory to the ear unless a strong 
pause is made after Iran. 

341. embraced his knees. A Homeric touch. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 13 

" Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean ! 
False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys. 
For if I now confess this thing he asks, 
And hide it not, but say: 'Rustum is here! ' 350 

He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes, 
But he will find some pretext not to fight, 
And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts, 
A belt or sword perhaps, and go his way. 
And on a feast-tide, in Afrasiab's hall, 355 

In Samarcand, he will arise and cry: 
'I challenged once, when the two armies camp'd 
Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords 
To cope with me in single fight; but they 
Shrank, only Rustum dared ; then he and I 360 

Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.' 
So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud; 
Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me. - " 

And then he turn'd, and sternly spake aloud: — 
"Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus 365 

Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call'd 
By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt, or yield! 
Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight? 
Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee! 
For well I know, that did great Rustum stand 370 

Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd, 
There would be then no talk of fighting more. 
But being what I am, I tell thee this — 
Do thou record it in thine inmost soul: 
Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt and yield, 375 

Or else thy bones shall strew this sand, till winds 

347. muse, wonder. 

355. -tide, time, season. 

363. Note the irony of this reasoning. 



14 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Bleach them, or Oxus with his summer-floods, 
Oxus in summer wash them all away." 

He spoke; and Sohrab answer 'd, on his feet: — 
"Art thou so fierce? Thou wilt not fright me so! 3 
I am no girl, to be made pale by words. 
Yet this thou hast said well, did Rustum stand 
Here on this field, there were no fighting then. 
But Rustum is far hence, and we stand here. 
Begin! thou art more vast, more dread than I, 1 

And thou art proved, I know, and I am young — 
But yet success sways with the breath of heaven. 
And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure 
Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know. 
For we are all, like swimmers in the sea, ■ 

/Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate, 
Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall. 
And whether it will heave us up to land, 
Or whether it will roll us out to sea, 
Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death, ■■ 

We know not, and no search will make us know; 
Only the event will teach us in its hour." 

He spoke, and Rustum answer'd not, but hurl'd 
His spear; down from the shoulder, down it came, 

/ As on some partridge in the corn a hawk, 4°o 

That long has tower'd fn the airy clouds, 
Drops like a plummet; Sohrab saw it come. 
And sprang aside, quick as a flash; the spear 
Hiss'd, and went quivering down into the sand, 

379. on his feet. Are these words meaningless, or poetically re- 
dundant; or do they emphasize the firmness of Sohrab after Rustum 's 
threat ? 

402. The poet was probably thinking of the speed rather than of the 
plane of the hawk's swoop. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 15 

Which it sent flying wide; — then Sohrab threw 405 

In turn, and full struck Rustum's shield; sharp rang, 
The iron plates rang sharp, but turn'd the spear. 
And Rustum seized his club, which none but he 
Could wield; an unlopp'd trunk it was, and huge, 
'Still rough -flike those which men in treeless plains 410 
To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers, 
Hyphasis or Hydaspes, when, high up 
By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time 
Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack, 
And strewn the channels with torn boughs/ — so huge 415 
The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck 
One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside, 
Lithe as the glancing snake, and the club came 
Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand. 
And Rustum follow'd his own blow, and fell 420 

To his knees, and with his fingers clutch'd the sand ; 
And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword, 
And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay 
Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand; 
But he look'd on, and smiled, nor bared his sword, 425 
But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said : — 
" Thou strik'st too hard ! that club of thine will float 
Upon the summer floods, and not my bones. 
But rise, and be not wroth! not wroth am I; 
No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul. 430 

406-407. Note the inverted repetition, — a favorite Miltonic device. 

412. Hyphasis, Hydaspes, the Beas and the Jhelam, rivers in the 
Punjab. 

414. wrack, wreck, ruin. 

426. Giving Sohrab at first the better of the fray allows his gentle 
blood an opportunity to assert itself. 

428. Cf. 11. 376-378. It is the poet himself, not Rustum or Sohrab, 
that must be made responsible for the idea that bones float. 



16 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Thou say'st, thou art not Rustum; be it so! 

Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul? 

Boy as I am, I have seen battles too — 

Have waded foremost in their bloody waves, 

And heard their hollow roar of dying men; 435 

But never was my heart thus touch'd before. 

Are they from Heaven, these softenings of the heart? 

O thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven! 

Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears, 

And make a truce, and sit upon this sand, 440 

And pledge each other in red wine, like friends, 

And thou shalt talk to me of Rustum's deeds. 

There are enough foes in the Persian host, 

Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang; 

Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou 445 

Mayst fight; fight them, when they confront thy spear! 

But oh, let there be peace 'twixt thee and me!" 

He ceased, but while he spake, Rustum had risen, 
And stood erect, trembling with rage; his club 
He left to lie, but had regain'd his spear, 45° 

Whose fiery point now in his mail'd right-hand 
Blazed bright and baleful, like that autumn-star, 
The baleful sign of fevers; dust had soil'd 
His stately crest, and dimm'd his glittering arms. 
His breast heaved, his lips foam'd, and twice his voice 455 
Was choked with rage; at last these words broke way: 

"Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands! 
Curl'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words! 
Fight, let me hear thy hateful voice no more! 
Thou art not in Afrasiab's gardens now 460 

With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to dance; 

452. Sirius, the Dog Star, in all probability. 
458. minion, favorite dependant. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM \J 

But on the Oxus-sands, and in the dance 

Of battle, and with me, who make no play 

Of war; I fight it out, and hand to hand. 

Speak not to me of truce, and pledge, and wine! 465 

Remember all thy valor; try thy feints 

And cunning! all the pity I had is gone; 

Because thou hast shamed me before both the hosts 

With thy light skipping tricks, and thy girl's wiles." 

He spoke, and Sohrab kindled at his taunts, 47° 

And he too drew his sword; at once they rush'd 
Together, as two eagles on one prey 
Come rushing down together from the clouds, 
One from the east, one from the west; their shields 
Dash'd with a clang together, and a din 475 

Rose, suchlas that the sinewy woodcutters 
Make often in the forest's heart at morn, 
Of hewing axes, crashing trees — such blows 
Rustum and Sohrab on each other hail'd. 
And you would say that sun and stars took part 480 

In that unnatural conflict; for a cloud 
Grew suddenly in heaven, and dark'd the sun 
Over the fighters' heads; and a wind rose 
Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain, 
And in a sandy whirlwind wrapp'd the pair. 485 

In gloom they twain were wrapp'd, and they alone; 
For both the on-looking hosts on either hand 
Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure, 
And the sun sparkled on the Oxus stream. 
But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes 49° 
And laboring breath; first Rustum struck the shield 
Which Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spear 
Rent the tough plates, but fail'd to reach the skin, 
And Rustum pluck'd it back with angry groan. 



18 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm, 495 

Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest 

He shore away, and that proud horsehair plume, 

Never till now defiled, sank to the dust; 

And Rustum bow'd his head; but then the gloom 

Grew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air, 500 

And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh, the horse, 

Who stood at hand, utter'd a dreadful cry; — 

No horse's cry was that, most like the roar 

Of some pain'd desert-lion, who all day 

Hath trail'd the hunter's javelin in his side, 505 

And comes at night to die upon the sand. 

The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear, 

And Oxus curdled as it cross'd his stream. 

But Sohrab heard, and quail'd not, but rush'd on, 

And struck again; and again Rustum bow'd 510 

His head; but this time all the blade, like glass, 

Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm, 

And in the hand the hilt remain'd alone. 

Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyes 

Glared, and he shook on high his menacing spear, 515 

And shouted: "Rustum!" — Sohrab heard that shout, 

And shrank amazed; back he recoil 'd one step, 

And scann'd with blinking eyes the advancing form; 

And then he stood bewilder'd; and he dropp'd 

His covering shield, and the spear pierced his side. 520 

He reel'd, and, staggering back, sank to the ground; 

And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell, 

And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all 

497. shore. Note the archaic form — sheared. 
508. curdled, grew thick with fear. 

516. In the original Rustum prays to the gods and is hearkened to 
on account of his piety. The fight lasts for two or three days. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 19 

The cloud; and the two armies saw the pair — 

Saw Rustum standing, safe upon his feet, 525 

And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand. 

Then, with a bitter smile, Rustum began : — 
"Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill 
A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse, 
And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent; 530 

Or else that the great Rustum would come down 
Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move 
His heart to take a gift, and let thee go; 
And then that all the Tartar host would praise 
Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame, 535 

To glad thy father in his weak old age. 
Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man! 
Dearer to the red jackals shalt thou be 
Than to thy friends, and to thy father old." 

And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied: — . 540 
"Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain. 
Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man! 
No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart. 
For were I match'd with ten such men as thee, 
And I were that which till to-day I was, 545 

They should be lying here, I standing there. 
But that beloved name unnerved my arm — 
That name, and something, I confess, in thee, 
Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield 
Fall; and thy spear transfix'd an unarm'd foe. 550 

And now thou boastest, and insult'st my fate. 
But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear: 
The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death! 
My father, whom I seek through all the world, 
He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!" 555 

I As when some hunter in the spring hath found 



20 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

A breeding eagle sitting on her nest, 

Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake, 

And pierced her with an arrow as she rose, 

And follow'd her to find her where she fell 

Far off; — anon her mate comes winging back 

From hunting, and a great way off descries 

His huddling young left sole; at that, he checks 

His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps 

Circles above his eyry, with loud screams 

Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she 

Lies dying, with the arrow in her side, 

In some far stony gorge out of his ken, 

A heap of fluttering feathers — never more 

Shall the lake glass her, flying over it; 

Never the black and dripping precipices 

Echo her stormy scream as she sails by — 

As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss, J 

So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood 

Over his dying son, and knew him not. 

But, with a cold incredulous voice, he said : — 
"What prate is this of fathers and revenge? 
The mighty Rustum never had a son." 

And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied: — 
"Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I. 
Surely the news will one day reach his ear, 
Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long, 
Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here ; 
And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap 
To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee. 
Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son! 
What will that grief, what will that vengeance be? 
Oh, could I live, till I that grief had seen! 
Yet him I pity not so much, but her. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 21 

My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells 590 

With that old king, her father, who grows gray 

With age, and rules over the valiant Koords. 

Her most I pity, who no more will see 

Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp, 

With spoils and honor, when the war is done. 595 

But a dark rumor will be bruited up, 

From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear; 

And then will that defenseless woman learn 

That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more, 

But that in battle with a nameless foe, 600 

By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain." 

He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud, 
Thinking of her he left, and his own death. 
He spoke; but Rustum listen'd, plunged in thought. 
Nor did he yet believe it was his son 605 

Who spoke, although he- call'd back names he knew; 
For he had had sure tidings that the babe, 
Which was in Ader-baijan born to him, 
Had been a puny girl ; no boy at all — 
So that sad mother sent him word, for fear 610 

Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms. 
And so he deem'd that either Sohrab took, 
By a false boast, the style of Rustum's son; 
Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame. 
So deem'd he; yet he listen'd, plunged in thought 615 
And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide 
Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shorey 

590. The Tartar princess, Tahminch. See the full version of the 
episode as given in Dole and Walker's " Flowers of Persian Poets." 

596. bruited up., i.e., noised abroad. 

611. Cf. the deception practised to keep Achilles from going to the 
Trojan War. 

613. styte, title. 



22 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

At the full moon; tears gather'd in his eyes; 
For he remember'd his own early youth, 
And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn, < 

, The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries 
A far, bright city, smitten by the sun, 
Through many rolling clouds — so Rustum saw 
His youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom; 
And that old king, her father, who loved well i 

His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child 
With joy; and all the pleasant life they led, 
They three, in that long distant summer-time — 
The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt 
And hound, and morn on those delightful hills < 

In Ader-baiian. And he saw that youth, 
Of age and looks to be his own dear son, 
Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand, 
Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe 
Of an unskillful gardener has been cut, i 

Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed, 
And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom, 
On the mown, dying grass — so Sohrab lay, 
Lovely in death, upon the common sand. 
And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said : — 

"O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son 
Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved. 
Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men 
Have told thee false — thou art not Rustum's son. 
For Rustum had no son ; one child he had — 
But one — a girl ; who with her mother now 
Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us — 
Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war.^ 

But Sohrab answer'd him in wrath; for now 
The anguish of the deep-fix'd spear grew fierce, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 23 

And he desired to draw forth the steel, 
And let the blood flow free, and so to die — 
But first he would convince his stubborn foe; 
And, rising sternly on one arm, he said : — 

"Man, who art thou who dost deny my words? 655 
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, 
And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine. 
I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm I bear 
That seal which Rustum to my mother gave, 
That she might prick it on the babe she bore." 660 

He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks, 
And his knees totter'd, and he smote his hand 
Against his breast, his heavy mailed hand, 
That the hard iron corselet clank'd aloud; 
And to his heart he press'd the other hand, 665 

And in a hollow voice he spake, and said : — 

" Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie ! 
If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son." 

Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed 
His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm, 670 

And show'd a sign in faint vermilion points 
Prick'd ;(as a cunning workman, in Pekin, 
Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase, 
An emperor's gift — at early morn he paints, 
And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp 675 
Lights up his studious forehead and thin handsV- 
So delicately prick'd the sign appear'd 
On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal. 
It was that griffin, which of old rear'd Zal, 
Rustum's great father, whom they left to die, 680 

660. In the original Sohrab wears an onyx amulet. 
664. That, so that. 
679. Cf. note to I. 232. 



24 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

A helpless babe, among the mountain rocks; 

Him that kind creature found, and reared, and loved — 

Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign. 

And Sohrab bared that image on his arm, 

And himself scann'd it long with mournful eyes, 685 

And then he touch 'd it with his hand, and said: — 

"How say'st thou? Is that sign the proper sign 
Of Rustum'sson, or of some other man's?" 

He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood 
Speechless; and then he utter'd one sharp cry: 690 

"O boy — thy father!" — and his voice choked there. 
And then a dark cloud pass'd before his eyes, 
And his head swam, and he sank down to earth. 
But Sohrab crawl'd to where he lay, and cast 
His arms about his neck, and kiss'd his lips, 695 

And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks, 
Trying to call him back to life; and life 
Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes, 
And they stood wide with horror; and he seized 
In both his hands the dust which lay around, 700 

And threw it on his head, and smirch'd his hair, — 
His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms; 
And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast, 
And his sobs choked him; and he clutch 'd his sword, 
To draw it, and forever let life out. 705 

But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands, 
And with a soothing voice he spake, and said : — 

"Father, forbear! for I but meet to-day 
The doom which at my birth was written down 
In heaven, and thou art heaven's unconscious ham,. 710 
Surely my heart cried out that it was thou, 
When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too, 






687. proper, own, individual. 






SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 25 

I know it! but fate trod those promptings down 

Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged 

The strife, and hurl'd me on my father's spear. 715 

But let us speak no more of this! I find 

My father; let me feel that I have found! 

Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take 

My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks, 

And wash them with thy tears, and say: 'My son!' 720 

Quick! quick! for number'd are my sands of life, * 

And swift; for like the lightning to this field 

I came, and like the wind I go away — 

Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind. 

But -it was writ in heaven that this should be." 725 

So said he, and his voice released the heart 
Of Rustum, and his tears broke forth; he cast 
His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud, 
And kiss'd him. And awe fell on both the hosts," 
When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the horse, 730 
With his head bowing to the ground and mane 
Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe 
First to the one then to the other moved 
His head, as if inquiring what their grief 
Might mean ; and from his dark, compassionate eyes, 735 
The big warm tears roll'd down, and caked the sand. 
But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said : — 

"Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feet 
Should first have rotted on their nimble joints, 
Or ere they brought thy master to this field!" 740 

But Sohrab look'd upon the horse, and said : — 
•Is this, then, Ruksh? How often, in past days, 
My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed, 
My terrible father's terrible horse! and said, 

736. caked, i.e., hardened. 



26 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

That I should one day find thy lord and thee. 745 

Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane! 

O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I; 

For thou hast gone where I shall never go, 

And snuff' d the breezes of my father's home. 

And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, 750 

And seen the River of Helmund, and the Lake 

Of Zirrah; and the aged Zal himself 

Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food, 

Corn in a golden platter soak'd with wine, 

And said: 'O Ruksh! bear Rustum well! ' — but I 755 

Have never known my grandsire's furrow'd face, 

Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan, 

Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream; 

But lodged among my father's foes, and seen 

Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand, 7 6 ° 

Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste, 

And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk 

The desert rivers, Moorghab and Tejend, 

Kohik, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep, 

The northern Sir; and this great Oxus stream, 765 

The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die." 

Then, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewail'd: — 
" Oh, that its waves were flowing over me! 
Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt 
Roll tumbling in the current o'er my head! " 770 

But, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied: — 
" Desire not that, my father ! thou must live. 
For some are born to do great deeds, and live, 
As some are born to be obscured, and die. 
Do thou the deeds I die too young to do, 775 

And reap a second glory in thine age; 

765. northern Sir, the Jaxartes. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 27 

Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine. 

But come! thou seest this great host of men 

Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these! 

Let me entreat for them; what have they done? 780 

They follow'd me, my hope, my fame, my star. 

Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace. 

But me thou must bear hence, not send with them, 

But carry me with thee to Seistan, 

And place me on a bed, and mourn for me, 785 

Thou, and the snow-hair'd Zal, and all thy friends. 

And thou must lay me in that lovely earth, 

And heap a stately mound above my bones, 

And plant a far-seen pillar over all. 

That so the passing horseman on the waste 790 

May see my tomb a great way off, and cry: 

'Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies there, 

Whom his great father did in ignorance kill!' 

And I be not forgotten in my grave." 

And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied: — 795 
"Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son, 
So shall it be; for I will burn my tents, 
And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me, 
And carry thee away to Seistan, 

And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee, 800 

With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends. 
And I will lay thee in that lovely earth, 
And heap a stately mound above thy bones, 
And plant a far-seen pillar over all, 

And men shall not forget thee in thy grave. 805 

And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go! 
Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace! 

806. Notice here and elsewhere the poetic effect of the accumulated 
'ands." 



28 MATTHEW ARNOLD 



What should I do with slaying any more? 

For would that all that I have ever slain 

Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes, 810 

And they who were call'd champions in their time, 

And through whose death I won that fame I have — 

And I were nothing but a common man, 

A poor, mean soldier, and without renown, 

So thou mightest live too, my son, my son! 815 

Or rather would that I, even I myself, 

Might now be lying on this bloody sand, 

Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine, 

Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou; 

And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan; 820 

And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine; 

And say: 'O son, I weep thee not too sore, 

For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end!' 

But now in blood and battles was my youth, 

And full of blood and battles is my age, 825 

And I shall never end this life of blood." 

Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied: — 
"A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man! 
But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now, 
Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day 830 

When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship, 
Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo, 
Returning home over the salt blue sea, 
From laying thy dear master in his grave." 

And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said : — 835 
"Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea! 
Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure." 

He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and took 
The spear, and drew it from his side, and eased 

828. dreadful, worthy to be dreaded, or causing dread. 






SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 29 

His wound's imperious anguish; but the blood 840 

Came welling from the open gash, and life 

Flow'd with the stream; -fall down his cold white side 

The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soil'd, 

Like the soil'd tissue of white violets 

Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank, 845 

By children whom their nurses call with haste 

Indoors from the sun's eye;) his head droop'd low, 

His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay — 

White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps, 

Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame, 850 

Convulsed him back to life, he open'd them, 

And fix'd them feebly on his father's face; 

Till now all strength was ebb'd, and from his limbs 

Unwillingly the spirit fled away, 

Regretting the warm -mansion which it left, 855 

And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world.' 

So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead; 
And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak 
Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son. 
As those black granite pillars, once high-rear'd 860 

By Jemshid in Persepolis, to bear 
His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps 
Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side — 
So in the sand lay Rustum by his son. 

And night came down over the solemn waste, 865 

And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, 
And darken 'd all; and a cold fog, with night, 
Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose, 
As of a great assembly loosed, and fires 

861. Jemshid was a mythical or very ancient Persian king noted for 
the magnificence of his reign, as illustrated in the massive ruins of Per- 
sepolis, which he is said 'to have founded. 



30 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Began to twinkle through the fog; for now 
Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal; 
The Persians took it on the open sands 
Southward, the Tartars by the river marge; 
And Rustum and his son were left alone. 

But the majestic river floated on, 
Out of the mist and hum of that low land, 
Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, 
Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian waste, 
Under the solitary moon ; — he flow'd 
Right for the polar star, past Orgunje, 880 

Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin 
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, 
And split his currents; that for many a league 
The shorn and parcel'd Oxus strains along 
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles — 885 

Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had 
In his high mountain cradle in Pamere, 
A foil'd circuitous wanderer — till at last 
The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide 
His luminous home of waters opens, bright 890 

And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars 
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. 

878. Chorasmia was the ancient name of Karissim, — a region of 
Turkistan on the Oxus, with about the present limits of Khiva. 

880. Orgunje, a village on the Oxus not very far below Khiva. 

892. Observe that in the two closing paragraphs the poet merges 
the pathos of the tragedy that has befallen an individual into the common 
life of the hosts and then into the calm of nature, neither of which is 
affected by the single human sorrow. 



SELECTED POEMS 

QUIET WORK 

One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, 
One lesson which in every wind is blown, 
One lesson of two duties kept at one 
Though the loud world proclaim their enmity, - 

Of toil unsevered from tranquillity; 
Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows 
Far noisier schemes, accomplished in repose, 
Too great for haste, too high for rivalry! 

Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring, 
Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil, 
Still do thy sleepless ministers move on, 

Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting; 
Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil, 
Laborers that shall not fail, when man is gone. 



SHAKESPEARE 

Others abide our question. Thou art free. 15 

We ask and ask — Thou smilest, and art still, 
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, 
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty, 

31 



32 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, 
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, 
Spares but the cloudy border of his base 
To the foiled searching of mortality; 

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, 
Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honored, self-secure, 
Didst tread on earth unguessed at. — Better so! 

All pains the immortal spirit must endure, 

All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow, 

Find their sole speech in that victorious brow. 



TO A FRIEND 

Who prop, thou ask'st, in these bad days, my mind ? — 
He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men, 
Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen, 
And Tmolus hill, and Smyrna bay, though blind. 

Much he, whose friendship I not long since won, 15 

That halting slave, who in Nicopolis 

Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son 

Cleared Rome of what most shamed him. But be his 

13. Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen. The name Europe 
(Ei)pw7T77, the wide prospect) probably describes the appearance of the 
European coast to the Greeks on the coast of Asia Minor opposite. The 
name Asia, again, comes, it has been thought, from the muddy fens of 
the rivers of Asia Minor, such as the Cayster or Maeander, which struck 
the imagination of the Greeks living near them. [Arnold's note.] The 
three writers referred to are, in order, Homer, Epictetus, and Sophocles. 

17. Vespasian's brutal son was Domitian. For the other names, see 
a classical dictionary. 



SELECTED POEMS 33 

My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul, 
From first youth tested up to extreme old age, 
Business could not make dull, nor passion wild; , 

Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole; 

The mellow glory of the Attic stage, 5 

Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child. 



WRITTEN IN EMERSON'S ESSAYS 

"O monstrous, dead, unprofitable world, 

That thou canst hear, and hearing hold thy way! 

A voice oracular hath pealed to-day, 

To-day a hero's banner is unfurled; 10 

Hast thou no lip for welcome?" — So I said. 
Man after man, the world smiled and passed by; 
A smile of wistful incredulity 
As though one spake of life unto the dead, — 

Scornful, and strange, and sorrowful, and full 15 

Of bitter knowledge. Yet the will is free; 
Strong is the soul, and wise, and beautiful; 

The seeds of godlike power are in us still; 

Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will! — 

Dumb judges, answer, truth or mockery? 20 

20. Compare with this sonnet Arnold's lecture on Emerson, in "Dis- 
courses in America." 



34 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 

ON HEARING HIM MISPRAISED 

Because thou hast believed, the wheels of life 
Stand never idle, but go always round; 
Not by their hands, who vex the patient ground, 
Moved only; but by genius, in the strife 

Of all its chafing torrents after thaw, 

Urged; and to feed whose movement, spinning sand, 

The feeble sons of pleasure set their hand ; 

And, in this vision of the general law, 

Hast labored, but with purpose; hast become 
Laborious, persevering, serious, firm, — 
For this, thy track, across the fretful foam 

Of vehement actions without scope or term, 
Called history, keeps a splendor; due to wit, 
Which saw one clew to life, and followed it. 



REQUIESCAT 

Strew on her roses, roses. 15 

And never a spray of yew: 
In quiet she reposes; 

Ah! would that I did too! 

Her mirth the world required; 

She bathed it in smiles of glee. 20 

But her heart was tired, tired, 

And now they let her be. 



SELECTED POEMS 35 

Her life was turning, turning, 

In mazes of heat and sound; 
But for peace her soul was yearning, 

And now peace laps her round. 

Her cabined, ample spirit, 5 

It fluttered and failed for breath; 

To-night it doth inherit 
The vasty hall of death. 

THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 

Come, dear children, let us away; 

Down and away below! 10 

Now my brothers call from the bay, 

Now the great winds shoreward blow, 

Now the salt tides seaward flow; 

Now the wild white horses play, 

Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. 15 

Children dear, let us away! 

This way, this way! 

Call her once before you go, — 

Call once yet! 

In a voice that she will know: 20 

" Margaret ! Margaret ! " 

Children's voices should be dear 

(Call once more) to a mother's ear; 

Children's voices, wild with pain, — 

Surely she will come again! 25 

Call her once, and come away; 

This way, this way! 

" Mother dear, we cannot stay* 

5. Cf. Macbeth, III. iv. 24, "cabin'd, cribb'd, confined." 



36 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

The wild white horses foam and fret." 
Margaret! Margaret! 

Come, dear children, come away down; 

Call no more! 

One last look at the white-walled town, 

And the little gray church on the windy shore; 

Then come down! 

She will not come, though you call all day; 

Come away, come away! 

Children dear, was it yesterday 
We heard the sweet bells over the bay ? 
In the caverns where we lay, 
Through the surf and through the swell, 
The far-off sound of a silver bell ? 
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, 
Where the winds are all asleep; 
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam, 
Where the salt weed sways in the stream, 
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round, 
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground; 
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, 
Dry their mail and bask in the brine; 
Where great whales come sailing by, 
Sail and sail, with unshut eye, 
Round the world for ever and aye? 
When did music come this way? 
Children dear, was it yesterday? 

Children dear, was it yesterday 

(Call yet once) that she went away? 

Once she sate with you and me, 

On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, 



SELECTED POEMS 37 

And the youngest sate on her knee. 

She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well, 

When down swung the sound of a far-off bell. 

She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea; 

She said, "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray 5 

In the little gray church on the shore to-day. 

'Twill be Easter-t jme in the world — ah me ! 

And I lose my poor soul, merman! here with thee." 

I said, "Go up, dear heart, through the waves; 

Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!" 10 

She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. 

Children dear, was it yesterday? 

Children dear, were we long alone ? 

"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; 

Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say; 15 

Come!" 1 said; and we rose through the surf in the -bay. 

We went up the beach, by the sandy down 

Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-walled town; 

Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still, 

To the little gray church on the windy hill. 20 

From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, 

But we stood without in the cold blowing airs. 

We climbed on the graves, on the stones worn with rains, 

And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes. 

She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: 25 

"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here: 

Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone; 

The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan." 

But, ah! she gave me never a look, 

For her eyes were sealed to the holy book! 3° 

Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. 

Come away, children, call no more! 

Come away, come down, call no more! 



38 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Down, down, down! 

Down to the depths of the sea! 

She sits at her wheel in the humming town, 

Singing most joyfully. 

Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy, 5 

For the humming street, and the child with its toy: 

For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; 

For the wheel where I spun, 

And the blessed light of the sun!" 

And so she sings her fill, 10 

Singing most joyfully, 

Till the spindle drops from her hand, 

And the whizzing wheel stands still. 

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, 

And over the sand at the sea; 15 

And her eyes are set in a stare; 

And anon there breaks a sigh, 

And anon there drops a tear, 

From a sorrow-clouded eye, 

And a heart sorrow-laden, 20 

A long, long sigh; 

For the cold strange eyes of a little mermaiden 

And the gleam of her golden hair. 

Come away, away, children; 

Come, children, come down! 25 

The hoarse wind blows colder; 

Lights shine in the town. 

She will start from her slumber 

When gusts shake the door; 

She will hear the winds howling, 30 

Will hear the waves roar. 

We shall see, while above us 

The waves roar and whirl, 



SELECTED POEMS 39 

A ceiling of amber, 

A pavement of pearl. 

Singing: "Here came a mortal, 

But faithless was she! 

And alone dwell forever 5 

The kings of the sea." 

But, children, at midnight, 

When soft the winds blow, 

When clear falls the moonlight, 

When spring-tides are low; 10 

When sweet airs come seaward 

From heaths starred with broom, 

And high rocks throw mildly 

On the blanched sands a gloom; 

Up the still,- glistening beaches, 15 

Up the creeks we will hie, 

Over banks of bright seaweed 

The ebb-tide leaves dry. 

We will gaze, from the sand-hills, 

At the white, sleeping town; 20 

At the church on the hill-side — 

And then come back down. 

Singing: "There dwells a loved one, 

But cruel is she! 

She left lonely forever 25 

The kings of the sea." 

26. After pointing out a few defects Mr. Saintsbury (" Matthew 
Arnold," p. 20) says of this often praised piece: "But it is a great 
poem — one by itself, one which finds and keeps its own place in the 
foreordained gallery or museum, with which every true lover of poetry 
is provided, though he inherits it by degrees. No one, I suppose, will 
deny its pathos ; I should be sorry for any one who fails to perceive 
its beauty. The brief picture of the land, and the fuller one of the sea, 
and that (more elaborate still) of the occupations of the fugitive, all have 



40 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

SWITZERLAND 

I. Meeting 

Again I see my bliss at hand, 

The town, the lake, are here; 
My Marguerite smiles upon the strand, 

Unaltered with the year. 

I know that graceful figure fair, 

That cheek of languid hue; 
I know that soft, enkerchiefed hair, 

And those sweet eyes of blue. 

Again I spring to make my choice; 

Again in tones of ire 
I hear a God's tremendous voice: 

"Be counselled, and retire." 

Ye guiding Powers who join and part, 

What would ye have with me? 
Ah, warn some more ambitious heart, 15 

And let the peaceful be! 

II. Parting 

Ye storm-winds of autumn! 
Who rush by, who shake 

their own charm. But the triumph of the piece is one of those metrical 
coups which give the triumph of all the greatest poetry, in the sudden 
change from the slower movement of the earlier stanzas or strophes to 
the quicker sweep of the famous conclusion — 

' The salt tide rolls seaward, [sic] 
Lights shine from the town ' — 
to ' She left lonely forever 

The kings of the sea.' 
Here the poet's poetry has come to its own." 



SELECTED POEMS 41 

The window, and ruffle 

The gleam-lighted lake; 

Who cross to the hill-side 

Thin-sprinkled with farms, 

Where the high woods strip sadly 5 

Their yellowing arms — 

Ye are hound for the mountains! 

Ah! with you let me go 

Where your cold, distant barrier, 

The vast range of snow, 10 

Through the loose clouds lifts dimly 

Its white peaks in air — 

How deep is their stillness! 

Ah! would I were there! 

But on the stairs what voice is this I hear, 15 

Buoyant as morning, and as morning clear ? 

Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn 

Lent it the music of its trees at dawn ? 

Or was it from some sun-flecked mountain-brook 

That the sweet voice its upland clearness took ? 20 

Ah! it comes nearer — 

Sweet notes, this way! 

Hark! fast by the window 

The rushing winds go, 

To the ice-cumbered gorges, 25 

The vast seas of snow! 

There the torrents drive upward 

Their rock-strangled hum; 
There the avalanche thunders 
The hoarse torrent dumb. 30 

— I come, O ye mountains! 
Ye torrents, I come! 



42 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

But who is this, by the half-opened door, 

Whose figure casts a shadow on the floor? 

The sweet blue eyes — the soft, ash-colored hair — 

The cheeks that still their gentle paleness wear — 

The lovely lips, with their arch smile that tells 5 

The unconquered joy in which her spirit dwells — 

Ah ! they bend nearer — 

Sweet lips, this way! 

Hark! the wind rushes past us! 

Ah! with that let me go 10 

To the clear, waning hill-side, 

Unspotted by snow, 

There to watch, o'er the sunk vale, 

The frore mountain-wall, 

Where the niched snow-bed sprays down 15 

Its powdery fall. 

There its dusky blue clusters 

The aconite spreads; 

There the pines slope, the cloud-strips 

Hung soft in their heads. 20 

No life but, at moments, 

The mountain-bee's hum. 

— I come, O ye mountains! 

Ye pine-woods, I come! 

Forgive me! forgive me! 25 

Ah, Marguerite, fain 
Would these arms reach to clasp thee! 

But see! 'tis in vain. 

In the void air, towards thee, 

My stretched arms are cast; 30 

But a sea rolls between us, — 

Our different past! 



SELECTED POEMS 43 

To the lips, ah! of others 

Those lips have been prest, 
And others, ere I was, 

Were strained to that breast. 

Far, far from each other 5 

Our spirits have grown; 
And what heart knows another? 

Ah ! who knows his own ? 

Blow, ye winds! lift me with you! 

I come to the wild. 10 

Fold closely, O Nature! 

Thine arms round thy child. 

To thee only God granted 

A heart ever new, — 
To all always open, 15 

To all always true. 

Ah! calm me, restore me; 

And dry up my tears 
On thy high mountain-platforms, 

Where morn first appears; 20 

Where the white mists, forever, 

Are spread and upfurled, — 
In the stir of the forces 

Whence issued the world. 

III. A Farewell 

My horse's feet beside the lake, 25 

Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay, 

Sent echoes through the night to wake 

Each glistening strand, each heath-fringed bay. 



44 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

The poplar avenue was passed, 

And the roofed bridge that spans the stream; 

Up the steep street I hurried fast, 

Led by the taper's starlike beam. 

I came! I saw thee rise! — the blood 5 

Poured flushing to thy languid cheek. 
Locked in each other's arms we stood, 
In tears, with hearts too full to speak. 

Days flew; — ah, soon I could discern 

A trouble in thine altered air! 10 

Thy hand lay languidly in mine, 

Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare. 

I blame thee not! — This heart, I know, 

To be long loved was never framed; 

For something in its depths doth glow 15 

Too strange, too restless, too untamed. 

And women, — things that live and move 

Mined by the fever of the soul, — 

They seek to find in those they love 

Stern strength, and promise of control. 20 

They ask not kindness, gentle ways — 
These they themselves have tried and known; 
They ask a soul which never sways 
With the blind gusts that shake their own. 

I too have felt the load I bore 25 

In a too strong emotion's sway; 

I too have wished, no woman more, 

This starting, feverish heart away. 



SELECTED POEMS 45 

I too have longed for trenchant force, 
And will like a dividing spear; 
Have praised the keen, unscrupulous course, 
Which knows no doubt, which feels no fear. 

But in the world I learnt, what there 5 

Thou too wilt surely one day prove, 
That will, that energy, though rare, 
Are yet far, far less rare than love. 

Go, then! — till time and fate impress 

This truth on thee, be mine no more! 10 

'fhey will! — for thou, I feel, not less 

Than I, wast destined to this lore. 

We school our manners, act our parts — 

But He, who sees us through and through, 

Knows that the bent of both our hearts 15 

Was to be gentle, tranquil, true. 

And though we wear out life, alas! 

Distracted as a homeless wind, 

In beating where we must not pass, 

In seeking what we shall not find; 20 

Yet we shall one day gain, life past, 
Clear prospect o'er our being's whole; 
Shall see ourselves, and learn at last 
Our true affinities of soul. 

We shall not then deny a course 25 

To every thought the mass ignore; 
We shall not then call hardness force, 
Nor lightness wisdom any more. 



46 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Then, in the eternal Father's smile, 
Our soothed, encouraged souls will dare 
To seem as free from pride and guile, 
As good, as generous, as they are. 

Then we shall know our friends! — though much 5 
Will have been lost, — the help in strife, 
The thousand sweet, still joys of such 
As hand in hand face earthly life, — 

Though these be lost, there will be yet 

A sympathy august and pure; IO 

Ennobled by a vast regret, 

And by contrition sealed thrice sure. 

And we, whose ways were unlike here, 

May then more neighboring courses ply; 

May to each other be brought near, 15 

And greet across infinity. 

How sweet, unreached by earthly jars, 

My sister! to maintain with thee 

The hush among the shining stars, 

The calm upon the moonlit sea! 20 

How sweet to feel, on the boon air, 
All our unquiet pulses cease! 
To feel that nothing can impair 
The gentleness, the thirst for peace, — 

The gentleness too rudely hurled 25 

On this wild earth of hate and fear; 
The thirst for peace a raving world 
Would never let us satiate here. 



SELECTED POEMS 47 

IV. Isolation. To Marguerite 

We were apart; yet, day by day, 

I bade my heart more constant be. 

I bade it keep the world away, 

And grow a home for only thee; 

Nor feared but thy love likewise grew, 5 

Like mine, each day, more tried, more true. 

The fault was grave! I might have known, 

What far too soon, alas! I learned, — 

The heart can bind itself alone, 

And faith may oft be unreturned. 10 

Self-swayed our feelings ebb and swell — 

Thou lov'st no more; — Farewell! Farewell! 

Farewell! — and thou, thou lonely heart, 

Which never yet without remorse 

Even for a moment didst depart 15 

From thy remote and sphered course 

To haunt the place where passions reign, — 

Back to thy solitude again! 

Back! with the conscious thrill of shame 

Which Luna felt, that summer-night, 20 

Flash through her pure immortal frame, 

When she forsook the starry height 

To hang over Endymion's sleep 

Upon the pine-grown Latmian steep. 

Yet she, chaste queen, had never proved 25 

How vain a thing is mortal love, 
Wandering in Heaven, far removed. 

23. Here and usually pronounced En-dy'-mi-on, as by Keats. Some 
texts give o'er for over, which requires En-dy-mi-on, Greek, 'Ev5v/j.tuu. 



48 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

But thou hast long had place to prove 

This truth, — to prove, and make thine own: 

" Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone." 

Or, if not quite alone, yet they 

Which touch thee are unmating things, — 5 

Ocean and clouds and night and day; 

Lorn autumns and triumphant springs; 

And life, and others' joy and pain, 

And love, if love, of happier men. 

Of happier men — for they, at least, 10 

Have dreamed two human hearts might blend 

In one, and were through faith released 

From isolation without end 

Prolonged; nor knew, although not less 

Alone than thou, their loneliness. 15 



V. To Marguerite. — Continued 

Yes! in the sea of life enisled, 

With echoing straits between us thrown, 

Dotting the shoreless watery wild, 

We mortal millions live alone. 

The islands feel the enclasping flow, 20 

And then their endless bounds they know. 

But when the moon their hollows lights, 

And they are swept by balms of spring, 

And in their glens, on starry nights, 

The nightingales divinely sing; 25 

And lovely notes, from shore to shore, 

Across the sounds and channels pour, — 



SELECTED POEMS 49 

Oh! then a longing like despair 

Is to their farthest caverns sent; 

For surely once, they feel, we were 

Parts of a single continent! 

Now round us spreads the watery plain — 5 

Oh might our marges meet again! 

Who ordered, that their longing's fire 

Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled ? 

Who renders vain their deep desire ? — 

A God, a God their severance ruled! 10 

And bade betwixt their shores to be 

The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea. 

VI. Absence 

In this fair stranger's eyes of gray 

Thine eyes, my love! I see. 
I shiver; for the passing day 15 

Had borne me far from thee. 

This is the curse of life! that not 

A nobler, calmer train 
Of wiser thoughts and feelings blot 

Our passions from our brain; 20 

But each day brings its petty dust 

Our soon-choked souls to fill, 
And we forget because we must 

And not because we will. 

I struggle towards the light; and ye, 25 

Once-longed-for storms of love! 
If with the light ye cannot be, 

I bear that ye remove. 



50 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

I struggle towards the light — but oh, 

While yet the night is chill, 
Upon time's barren, stormy flow, 

Stay with me, Marguerite, still! 

VII. The Terrace at Berne 

{Composed ten years after the preceding) 

Ten years! — and to my waking eye 5 

Once more the roofs of Berne appear; 
The rocky banks, the terrace high, 
The stream! — and do I linger here? 

The clouds are on the Oberland, 

The Jungfrau snows look faint and far; 10 

But bright are those green fields at hand, 

And through those fields comes down the Aar, 

And from the blue twin-lakes it comes, 

Flows by the town, the churchyard fair; 

And 'neath the garden-walk it hums, 15 

The house ! — and is my Marguerite there ? 

Ah, shall I see thee, while a flush 

Of startled pleasure floods thy brow, 

Quick through the oleanders brush, 

And clap thy hands, and cry: 'Tis thou I 20 

Or hast thou long since wandered back, 
Daughter of France! to France, thy home; 
And flitted down the flowery track 
Where feet like thine too lightly come? 

Doth riotous laughter now replace 25 

Thy smile; and rouge, with stony glare,- 
Thy cheek's soft hue; and fluttering lace 
The kerchief that enwound thy hair? 



SELECTED POEMS 51 

Or is it over ? — art thou dead ? — 
Dead ! — and no warning shiver ran 
Across my heart, to say thy thread 
Of life was cut, and closed thy span ! 

Could from earth's ways that figure slight 5 

Be lost, and I not feel 'twas so ? 
Of that fresh voice the gay delight 
Fail from earth's air, and I not know? 

Or shall I find thee still, but changed, 

But not the Marguerite of thy prime? 10 

With all thy being re-arranged, 

Passed through the crucible of time; 

With spirit vanished, beauty waned, 

And hardly yet a glance, a tone, 

A gesture — anything — retained 15 

Of all that was my Marguerite's own ? 

I will not know! For wherefore try, 

To things by mortal course that live, 

A shadowy durability, 

For which they were not meant, to give? 20 

Like driftwood spars, which meet and pass 

Upon the boundless ocean-plain, 

So on the sea of life, alas! 

Man meets man, — meets, and quits again. 

I knew it when my life was young; 25 

I feel it still, now youth is o'er. 

— The mists are on the mountain hung, 

And Marguerite I shall see no more. 



52 MATTHEW ARNOLD 



PHILOMELA 

Hark! ah, the nightingale — 

The tawny-throated! 

Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst! 

What triumph! hark! — what pain! 

O wanderer from a Grecian shore, 5 

Still, after many years, in distant lands, 

Still nourishing in thy bewildered brain 

That wild, unquenched, deep-sunken, old-world pain — 

Say, will it never heal? 

And can this fragrant lawn 10 

With its cool trees, and night, 

And the sweet, tranquil Thames, 

And moonshine, and the dew, 

To thy racked heart and brain 

Afford no balm? 15 

Dost thou to-night behold, 

Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, 

The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild ? 

Dost thou again peruse 

With hot cheeks and seared eyes 20 

The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame? 

Dost thou once more assay 

Thy flight, and feel come over thee, 

Poor fugitive, the feathery change 

Once more, and once more seem to make resound 25 

With love and hate, triumph and agony, 

Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale? 

S. See any classical dictionary under Philomela. 



SELECTED POEMS 53 

Listen, Eugenia, — 

How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves! 

Again — thou hearest ? 

Eternal passion! 

Eternal pain! 5 

DOVER BEACH 

The sea is calm to-night. 

The tide is full, the moon lies fair 

Upon the straits; — on the French coast the light 

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, 

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. 10 

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! 

Only, from the long line of spray 

Where the sea meets the moon -blanched land, /o~W 

Listen! you hear the grating roar #w\>o-' 

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, 15 

At their return, up the high strand, 

Begin and cease, and then again begin, 

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring 

The eternal note of sadness in. 

Sophocles long ago 20 

Heard it on the ^Egean, and it brought 

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow 

Of human misery; we 

Find also in the sound a thought, 

Hearing it by this distant northern sea. 25 

The Sea of Faith 

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore 

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. 




54 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

But now I only hear 

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 

Retreating, to the breath 

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear 

And naked shingles of the world. 

Ah, love, let us be true 

To one another! for the world, which seems 

To lie before us like a land of dreams, 

So various, so beautiful, so new, 

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, 

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; 

And we are here as on a darkling plain 

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, 

Where ignorant armies clash by night. 

THE LAST WORD 

Creep into thy narrow bed, 15 

Creep, and let no more be said ! 
Vain thy onset! all stands fast. 
Thou thyself must break at last. 

Let the long contention cease! 

Geese are swans, and swans are geese. 20 

Let them have it how they will! 

Thou art tired; best be still. 

They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee ? 
Better men fared thus before thee; 
Fired their ringing shot and passed, 25 

Hotly charged — and sank at last. 

14. One of the best known and most beautiful of the poems in which 
Arnold expressed his religious discontent and longing. See also "A 
Summer Night" and "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse." 



SELECTED POEMS 55 

Charge once more, then, and be dumb! 
Let the victors, when they come, 
When the forts of folly fall, 
Find thy body by the wall! 



CADMUS AND HARMONIA 

Far, far from here, 5 

The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay 

Among the green Ulyrian hills; and there 

The sunshine in the happy glens is fair, 

And by the sea, and in the brakes. 

The grass is cool, the sea-side air 10 

Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers 

More virginal and sweet than ours. 

And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes, 

Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia, 

Bask in the glens or on the warm sea-shore, 15 

In breathless quiet, after all their ills; 

Nor do they see their country, nor the place 

Where the Sphinx lived among the frowning hills, 

Nor the unhappy palace of their race, 

Nor Thebes, nor the Ismenus, any more. 20 

There those two live, far in the Ulyrian brakes! 

They had stayed long enough to see, 

In Thebes, the billow of calamity 

Over their own dear children rolled, 

Curse upon curse, pang upon pang, 25 

For years, they sitting helpless in their home, 

5. Callicles's song, from "Empedocles on Etna," Act I. 

25. See Ino Agave. Autonoe, and Semele in a classical dictionary. 



56 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

A gray old man and woman ; yet of old 
The gods had to their marriage come, 
And at the banquet all the Muses sang. 

Therefore they did not end their days 

In sight of blood; but were rapt, far away, 5 

To where the west-wind plays, 

And murmurs of the Adriatic come 

To those untrodden mountain-lawns; and there 

Placed safely in changed forms, the pair 

Wholly forget their first sad life, and home, to 

And all that Theban woe, and stray 

Forever through the glens, placid and dumb. 

CALLICLES'S SONG 

Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts, 
Thick breaks the red flame; 

All Etna heaves fiercely 15' 

Her forest-clothed frame. 

Not here, O Apollo! 

Are haunts meet for thee; 

But, where Helicon breaks down 

In cliff to the sea, * .' 20 

Where the moon-silvered inlets 
Send far their light voice 
Up the still vale of Thisbe, — 
Oh, speed, and rejoice! 

On the sward at the cliff-top 25 

Lie strewn the white flocks, 
On the cliff-side the pigeons 
Roost deep in the rocks. 

13. From " Empedocles on Etna." The song closes the dramatic poem. 



SELECTED POEMS 57 

In the moonlight the shepherds, 
Soft lulled by the rills, 
Lie wrapt in their blankets 
Asleep on the hills. 

— What forms are these coming 5 
So white through the gloom? 

What garments out-glistening 
The gold-flowered broom? 

What sweet-breathing presence 

Out-perfumes the thyme? 10 

What voices enrapture 

The night's balmy prime? — 

'Tis Apollo comes leading 
His choir, the Nine. 

— The leader is fairest, 15 
But all are divine. 

They are lost in the hollows! 

They stream up again! 

What seeks on this mountain 

The glorified train? — 20 

They bathe on this mountain, 
In the spring by their road; 
Then on to Olympus, 
Their endless abode. 

— Whose praise do they mention ? 25 
Of what is it told? — 

What will be forever; 
What was from of old. 



58 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

First hymn they the Father 
Of all things; and then, 
The rest of immortals, 
The action of men. 

The day in his hotness, 
The strife with the palm; 
The night in her silence, 
The stars in their calm. 



SELF-DEPENDENCE 

Weary of myself, and sick of asking 
What I am, and what I ought to be, 
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me 
Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea. 

And a look of passionate desire 

O'er the sea and to the stars I send: 

"Ye who from my childhood up have calmed me, 

Calm me, ah, compose me to the end! 

"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, 
On my heart your mighty charm renew; 
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, 
Feel my soul becoming vast like you!" 

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, 

Over the lit sea's unquiet way, 

In the rustling night-air came the answer: 

" Wouldst thou be as these are ? Live as they. 

" Unaff righted by the silence round them, 
Undistracted by the sights they see, 
These demand not that the things without them 
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. 
6. With the palm for a prize. 



SELECTED POEMS 59 

"And with joy the stars perform their shining, 
And the sea its long moon-silvered roll; 
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting 
All the fever of some differing soul. 

"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful 5 

In what state. God's other works may be, 
In their own tasks all their powers pouring, 
These attain the mighty life you see." 

O air-born voice! long since, severely clear, 

A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear: — 10 

"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he, 

Who finds himself, loses his misery!" 

MORALITY 

We cannot kindle when we will 

The fire which in the heart resides; 

The spirit bloweth and is still, 15 

In mystery our soul abides. 

But tasks in hours of insight willed 

Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled. 

With aching hands and bleeding feet 

We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; 20 

We bear the burden and the heat 

Of the long day, and wish 'twere done. 

Not till the hours of light return, 

All we have built do we discern. 

Then, when the clouds are off the soul, 25 

When thou dost bask in Nature's eye, 
Ask, how she viewed thy self-control, 
Thy struggling, tasked morality, — 



60 MATTHEW ARNOLD ■ 

Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air, 
Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair. 

And she, whose censure thou dost dread, 

Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek, 

See, on her face a glow is spread, 5 

A strong emotion on her cheek! 

"Ah, child!" she cries, "that strife divine, 

Whence was it, for it is not mine? 

" There is no effort on my brow — 

I do not strive, I do not weep; 10 

I rush with the swift spheres and glow 

In joy, and when I will, I sleep. 

Yet that severe, that earnest air, 

I saw, I felt it once — but where ? 

" I knew not yet the gauge of time, 15 

Nor wore the manacles of space; 
I felt it in some other clime, 
I saw it in some other place. 

'Twas when the heavenly house I trod, 

And lay upon the breast of God." 20 

A SUMMER NIGHT 

In the deserted, moon-blanched street, 

How lonely rings the echo of my feet! 

Those windows, which I gaze at, frown, 

Silent and white, unopening down, 

Repellent as the world ; — but see, 25 

A break between the housetops shows 

The moon! and, lost behind her, fading dim 

Into the dewy dark obscurity 

Down at the far horizon's rim, 

Doth a whole tract of heaven disclose! 30 



SELECTED POEMS 6l 

And to my mind the thought 

Is on a sudden brought 

Of a past night, and a far different scene. 

Headlands stood out into the moonlit deep 

As clearly as at noon; 5 

The spring-tide's brimming flow 

Heaved dazzlingly between; 

Houses, with long white sweep, 

Girdled the glistening bay; 

Behind, through the soft air, 10 

The blue haze-cradled mountains spread away, 

The night was far more fair — 

But the same restless pacings to and fro, 

And the same vainly throbbing heart was there, 

And the same bright, calm moon. 15 

And the calm moonlight seems to say: 

Hast thou, then, still the old unquiet breast, 

Which neither deadens into rest, 

Nor ever feels the fiery glow 

That whirls the spirit from itself away, 20 

But fluctuates to and fro, 

Never by passion quite possessed, 

And never quite benumbed by the world's sway? 

And I, I know not if to pray 

Still to be what I am, or yield and be 25 

Like all the other men I see. 

For most men in a brazen prison live, 

Where, in the sun's hot eye, 

With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly 

Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give, 30 

Dreaming of naught beyond their prison-wall. 



62 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

And as, year after year, 

Fresh products of their barren labor fall 

From their tired hands, and rest 

Never yet comes more near, 

Gloom settles slowly down over their breast; 5 

And while they try to stem 

The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest, 

Death in their prison reaches them, 

Unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest. 

And the rest, a few, 10 

Escape their prison and depart 

On the wide ocean of life anew. 

There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart 

Listeth, will sail; 

Nor doth he know how there prevail, 15 

Despotic on that sea, 

Trade-winds which cross it from eternity. 

Awhile he holds some false way, undebarred 

By thwarting signs, and braves 

The freshening wind and blackening waves. 20 

And then the tempest strikes him; and between 

The lightning-bursts is seen 

Only a driving wreck, 

And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck 

With anguished face and flying hair 25 

Grasping the rudder hard, 

Still bent to make some port he knows not where, 

Still standing for some false, impossible shore. 

And sterner comes the roar 

Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom 30 

Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom, 

And he too disappears, and comes no more. 



SELECTED POEMS 63 

Is there no life, but these alone? 
Madman or slave, must man be one ? 

Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain! 

Clearness divine! 

Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign 5 

Of languor, though so calm, and, though so great, 

Are yet untroubled and unpassionate; 

Who, though so noble, share in the world's toil, 

And, though so tasked, keep free from dust and soil! 

I will not say that your mild deeps retain 10 

A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain 

Who have longed deeply once, and longed in vain — 

But I will rather say that you remain 

A world above man's head, to let him see 

How boundless might his soul's horizons be, 15 

How vast, yet of what clear transparency! 

How it were good to abide there, and breathe free; 

How fair a lot to fill 

Is left to each man still! 

19. The student should turn from this poem to two which follow in 
close succession in Arnold's complete poems, "The Buried Life" and 
" The Future." The close of the latter, describing " the river of Time," 
with the man on its breast, as it nears the ocean, is oneof the best 
passages in Arnold : — 

" And the width of the waters, the hush 
Of the gray expanse where he floats, 
Freshening its current and spotted with foam 
As it draws to the Ocean, may strike 
Peace to the soul of the man on its breast — 
As the pale waste widens around him, 
As the banks fade dimmer away, 
As the stars come out, and the night-wind 
Brings up the stream 
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea." 



64 MATTHEW ARNOLD 



THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY i 

Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill; 
Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes! 

No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed, 
Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats, 

Nor the cropped herbage shoot another head. 
But when the fields are still, 
And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest, 

And only the white sheep are sometimes seen 

Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanched green, 
Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest! 



1 "There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford, who was 
by his poverty forced to leave his studies there; and at last to join him- 
self to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these extravagant 
people, by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage, he quickly got so 
much of their love and esteem as that they discovered to him their mys- 
tery. After he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade, there 
chanced to ride by a couple of scholars, who had formerly been of his 
acquaintance. They quickly spied out their old friend among the 
gipsies; and he gave them an account of the necessity which drove him 
to that kind of life, and told them that the people he went with were not 
such impostors as they were taken for, but that they had a traditional 
kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the power of 
imagination, their fancy binding that of others; that himself had learned 
much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole secret, he 
intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the world an account 
of what he had learned." — Glanvil's Vanity of Dogmatizing, 1661. — 
[Arnold's note.] 

Joseph Glanvil (1636-1680) was an English divine who wrote on 
philosophical and theological subjects. The book quoted from above 
was an attack on the scholastic philosophy. He defended belief in 
witchcraft. 



SELECTED POEMS 65 

Here, where the reaper was at work of late, — 
In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves 

His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse, 
And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves, 

Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use, — 5 
Here will I sit and wait, 
While to my ear from uplands far away 

The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, 

With distant cries of reapers in the corn, — 
All the live murmur of a summer's day. 10 

Screened is this nook o'er the high, half-reaped field, 
And here till sun-down, shepherd! will I be. 

Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep, 
And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see 

Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep; 15 

And air-swept lindens yield 
Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers 

Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid, 

And bower me from the August sun with shade; 
And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers. 20 

And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book — 
Come, let me read the oft-read tale again! 

The story of the Oxford scholar poor, 
Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain, 

Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door, 25 

One summer-morn forsook 
His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore, 

And roamed the world with that wild brotherhood, 

And came, as most men deemed, to little good, 
But came to Oxford and his friends no more. 30 



66 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

But once, years after, in the country-lanes, 
Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew, 

Met him, and of his way of life inquired; 
Whereat he answered, that the gispy-crew, 

His mates, had arts to rule as they desired 5 

The workings of men's brains, 
And they can bind them to what thoughts they will. 

"And I," he said, "the secret of their art, 

When fully learned, will to the world impart; 
But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill." 10 

This said, he left them, and returned no more, — 
But rumors hung about the country-side, 

That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, 
Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied, 

In hat of antique shape, and cloak of gray, 15 

The same the gipsies wore. 
Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring; 

At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors, 

On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frocked boors 
Had found him seated at their entering, 20 

But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly. 
And I myself seem half to know thy looks, 

And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy trace; 
And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks 

I ask if thou hast passed their quiet place; 25 

Or in my boat I lie 
Moored to the cool bank in the summer-heats, 

'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills, 

And watch the warm, green-muffled Cumner hills, 
And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats. 30 



SELECTED POEMS 67 

For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground! 
Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, 

Returning home on summer-nights, have met 
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe, 

Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, 5 

As the punt's rope chops round ; 
And leaning backward in a pensive dream, 

And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers 

Plucked in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers, 
And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream. 10 

And then they land, and thou art seen no more! — 
Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come 

To dance around the Fyfield elm in May, 
Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam, 

Or cross a stile into the public way. . 15 

Oft thou hast given them store 
Of flowers — the frail-leafed, white anemone, 

Dark bluebells drenched with dews of summer eves, 

And purple orchises with spotted leaves, — 
But none hath words she can report of thee! 20 

And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here 
In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames, 

Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass 
Where black-winged swallows haunt the glittering Thames, 

To bathe in the abandoned lasher pass, 25 

Have often passed thee near 
Sitting upon the river-bank o'ergrown; 

Marked thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare, 

Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air — 
But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone! 30 

25. lasher, weir. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills, 
Where at her open door the housewife darns, 
Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate 
To watch the threshers in the mossy barns. 

Children, who early range these slopes and late 5 

For cresses from the rills, 
Have known thee eying, all an April-day, 

The springing pastures and the feeding kine; 
And marked thee, when the stars come out and shine, 
Through the long dewy grass move slow away. 10 

In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood, — 
Where most the gipsies by the turf-edged way 

Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see 
With scarlet patches tagged and shreds of gray, 

Above the forest-ground called Thessaly, — 15 

The blackbird, picking food, 
Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all; 

So often has he known thee past him stray, 

Rapt, twirling in thy hand a withered spray, 
And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall. 20 

And once, in winter, on the causeway chill 

Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go, 

Have I not passed thee on the wooden bridge, 
Wrapped in thy cloak and battling with the snow, 

Thy face tow'rd Hinksey and its wintry ridge? 25 

And thou hast climbed the hill, 
And gained the white brow of the Cumner range; 

Turned once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall, 

The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall — 
Then sought thy straw in some sequestered grange. . 30 






SELECTED POEMS C 

But what — I dream! Two hundred years are flown 
Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls, 

And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe 
That thou wert wandered from the studious walls 

To learn strange arts, and join a gipsy-tribe; 5 

And thou from earth art gone 
Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid, — 

Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave 

Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave, 
Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade. 10 

— No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours! 
For what wears out the life of mortal men ? 

'Tis that from change to change their being rolls; 
'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, 

Exhaust the energy of strongest souls 15 

And numb the elastic powers, 
Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen, 

And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit, 

To the just-pausing Genius we remit 
Our worn-out life, and are — what we have been. 20 

Thou hast not lived, why shouldst thou perish, so? 
Thou hadst one aim, one business, one desire; 

Else wert thou long since numbered with the dead ! 
Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire! 

The generations of thy peers are fled, 25 

And we ourselves shall go; 
But thou possessest an immortal lot, 

And we imagine thee exempt from age 

And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page, 
Because thou hadst — what we, alas! have not. 30 



;o 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 



For early didst thou leave the world, with powers 
Fresh, undiverted to the world without, 

Firm to their mark, not spent on other things; 
Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, 

Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings. 5 
O life unlike to ours! 
Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, 

Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives, 

And each half lives a hundred different lives; 
Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope. 10 

Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, 
Light half-believers of our casual creeds, 

Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed, 
Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, 

Whose vague resolves never have been fulfilled; 15 

For whom each year we see 
Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; 

Who hesitate and falter life away, 

And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day — 
Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too? 

Yes, we await it! — but it still delays, 
And then we suffer! and amongst us one, 

Who most has suffered, takes dejectedly 
His seat upon the intellectual throne; 

And all his store of sad experience he 25 

Lays bare of wretched days; 
Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs, 

And how the dying spark of hope was fed, 

And how the breast was soothed, and how the head, 
And all his hourly varied anodynes. 30 









SELECTED POEMS J\ 

This for our wisest! and we others pine, 

And wish the long unhappy dream would end, 

And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear; 
With close-lipped patience for our only friend, — 

Sad patience, too near neighbor to despair, — 5 

But none has hope like thine! 
Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray, 

Roaming the country-side, a truant boy, 

Nursing thy project in unclouded joy, 
And every doubt long blown by time away. 10 

O, borrf in days when wits were fresh and clear, 
And life ran gayly as the sparkling Thames; 

Before this strange disease of modern life, 
With its sick hurry, its' divided aims, 

Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts, was rife, — 15 
Fly hence, our contact fear! 
Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood! 

Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern 

From her false friend's approach in Hades turn, 
Wave us away, and keep thy solitude! 20 

Still nursing the unconquerable hope, 
Still clutching the inviolable shade, 

With a free, onward impulse brushing through, 
By night, the silvered branches of the glade, — 

Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue, 25 

On some mild pastoral slope 
Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales 

Freshen thy flowers as in former years 

With dew, or listen with enchanted ears, 
From the dark dingles, to the nightingales! 3° 



72 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly! 
For strong the infection of our mental strife, 

Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest; 
And we should win thee from thy own fair life, 

Like us distracted, and like us unblest. 
Soon, soon thy cheer would die, 
Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed thy powers, 

And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made; 

And then thy glad perennial youth would fade, 
Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours. 10 

Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles! 
— As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea, 

Descried at sunrise an emerging prow 
Lifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily, 

The fringes of a southward -facing brow 15 

Among the ^Egean isles; 
And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, 

Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, 

Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine — 
And knew the intruders on his ancient home, 20 

The young light-hearted masters of the waves, — 
And snatched his rudder, and shook out more sail; 

And day and night held on indignantly 
O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale, 

Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, 25 

To where the Atlantic raves 
Outside the western straits; and unbent sails 

There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, 

Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come; 
And on the beach undid his corded bales. 30 

25. Syrtes. Two sand banks in the Mediterranean, off the coast of 
Africa. 

29. Iberia was an ancient name of Spain. 









SELECTED POEMS 73 



THYRSIS 

A Monody, to commemorate the author' 's friend, 
Arthur Hugh Clough, who died at Florence, 1861. 

How changed is here each spot man makes or fills! 
In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same; 

The village street its haunted mansion lacks, 
And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name, 

And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks — 5 

Are ye too changed, ye hills? 
See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men 

To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays! 

Here came I often, often, in old days, — 
Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then. • 10 

Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm, 
Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns 

The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames? 
The signal-elm, that looks on Usley Downs, 

The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames ? — 15 
This winter-eve is warm, 
Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring, 

The tender purple spray on copse and briers! 

And that sweet city with her dreaming spires, 
She needs not June for beauty's heightening, 20 

2. Throughout this poem there is reference to the preceding piece, 
"The Scholar-Gipsy." [Arnold's note.] For the poet Clough, see the 
" Dictionary of National Biography," or any good account of recent Eng- 
lish literature. 

20. Compare Arnold's famous apostrophe to Oxford in the preface 
to his " Essays in Criticism " (1865). 



74 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night! — 
Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power 

Befalls me wandering through this upland dim. 
Once passed I blindfold here, at any hour; 

Now seldom come I, since I came with him. 5 

That single elm-tree bright 
Against the west — I miss it! is it gone? 

We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said, 

Our friend, the Gipsy-Scholar, was not dead; 
While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on. 10 

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here, 

But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick; 

And with the country-folk acquaintance made 
By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick. 

Here, too, our shepherd -pipes we first assayed. 15 

Ah me! this many a year 
My pipe is lost, my shepherd's holiday! 

Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart 

Into the world and wave of men depart; 
But Thyrsis of his own will went away. 20 

It irked him to be here, he could not rest. 
He loved each simple joy the country yields, 

He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep, 
For that a shadow lowered on the fields, 

Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep. 25 

Some life of men unblest 
He knew, which made him droop, and filled his head. 

He went; his piping took a troubled sound 

Of storms that rage outside our happy ground; 
He could not wait their passing, he is dead. 30 






SELECTED POEMS 75 

So, some tempestuous morn in early June, 

When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er, 

Before the roses and the longest day, — 
When garden-walks, and all the grassy floor 

With blossoms red and white of fallen May 5 

And chestnut-flowers are strewn — 
So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, 

From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees, 

Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze: 
The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go 1 1 10 

Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go ? 
Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, 

Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, 
Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, 

Sweet- William with his homely cottage-smell, 15 

And stocks in fragrant blow; 
Roses that down the alleys shine afar, 

And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, 

And groups under the dreaming garden-trees, 
And the full moon, and the white evening-star. 20 

He hearkens not! light comer, he is flown! 
What matters it? next year he will return, 

And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days, 
With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern, 

And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways, 25 

And scent of hay new-mown. 
But Thyrsis never more we swains shall see; 

See him come back, and cut a smoother reed, 

And blow a strain the world at last shall heed — 
For Time, not Corydon, hath conquered thee! 30 



j6 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Alack, for Corydon no rival now! — 

But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate, 

Some good survivor with his flute would go, 
Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate; 

And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow, 5 

And relax Pluto's brow, 
And make leap up with joy the beauteous head 

Of Proserpine, among whose crowned hair 

Are flowers first opened on Sicilian air, 
And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead. 10 

O, easy access to the hearer's grace 

When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine! 

For she herself had trod Sicilian fields, 
She knew the Dorian water's gush divine, 

She knew each lily white which Enna yields, 15 

Each rose with blushing face; 
She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain. 

But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard! 

Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirred; 
And we should tease her with our plaint in vain. 20 

Well! wind -dispersed and vain the words will be, 
Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour 

In the old haunt, and find our tree-topped hill! 
Who, if not I, for questing here hath power? 

I know the wood which hides the daffodil, 25 

I know the Fyfield tree, 
I know what white, what purple fritillaries 

The grassy harvest of the river-fields, 

Above by Ensham, down by Sandford, yields, 
And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries; 30 



SELECTED POEMS 77 

I know these slopes ; who knows them if not I ? — 
But many a dingle on the loved hill-side, 

With thorns once studded, old, white-blossomed trees, 
Where thick the cowslips grew, and far descried 

High towered the spikes of purple orchises, 5 

Hath since our day put by 
The coronals of that forgotten time; 

Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy's team, 

And only in the hidden brookside gleam 
Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime. 10 

Where is the girl, who by the boatman's door, 
Above the locks, above the boating throng, 

Unmoored our skiff when through the Wytham flats, 
Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among, 

And darting swallows and light water-gnats, 15 

We tracked the shy Thames shore ? 
Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell 

Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass, 

Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass ? — 
They all are gone, and thou art gone as well ! 20 

Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night 
In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade. 

I see her veil draw soft across the day, 
I feel her slowly chilling breath invade 

The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with gray; 25 
I feel her finger light 
Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train ; — 

The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, 

The heart less bounding at emotion new, 
And hope, once crushed, less quick to spring again. 30 



78 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 



And long the way appears, which seemed so short 
To the less practised eye of sanguine youth; 

And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air, 
The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth, 

Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare! 5 

Unbreachable the fort 
Of the long-battered world uplifts its wall; 

And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows, 

And near and real the charm of thy repose, 
And night as welcome as a friend would fall. 10 

But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss 
Of quiet! — Look, adown the dusk hill-side, 

A troop of Oxford hunters going home, 
As in old days, jovial and talking, ride! 

From hunting with the Berkshire hounds they come. 15 
Quick! let me fly, and cross 
Into yon farther field! — 'Tis done; and see, 

Backed by the sunset, which doth glorify 

The orange and pale violet evening-sky, 
Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree! 20 

I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil, 

The white fog creeps from bush to bush about, 

The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright, 
And in the scattered farms the lights come out. 

I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night, 25 

Yet, happy omen, hail! 
Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale 

(For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep 

The morningless and unawakening sleep 
Under the flowery oleanders pale), 3° 



SELECTED POEMS 79 

Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there! — 

Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim, 

These brambles pale with mist engarlanded, 
That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him; 

To a boon southern country he is fled, 5 

And now in happier air, 
Wandering with the great Mother's train divine 

(And purer or more subtle soul than thee, 

I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see) 
Within a folding of the Apennine, 10 

Thou 'hearest the immortal chants of old ! — 
Putting his sickle to the perilous grain 

In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king, 
For thee the Lityerses-song again 

Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;* 15 

Sings his Sicilian fold, 
His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes — 

And how a call celestial round him rang, 

And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang, 
And all the marvel of the golden skies. 20 

There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here 

Sole in these fields! yet will I not despair. 

Despair I will not, while I yet descry 

15. Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing. Daphnis, the ideal 
Sicilian shepherd of Greek pastoral poetry, was said to have followed 
into Phrygia his mistress Piplea, who had been carried off by robbers, 
and to have found her in the power of the king of Phrygia, Lityerses. 
Lityerses used to make strangers try a contest with him in reaping corn, 
and to put them to death if he overcame them. Hercules arrived in time 
to save Daphnis, took upon himself the reaping-contest with Lityerses, 
overcame him, and slew him. The Lityerses-song connected with this 



80 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

'Neath the mild canopy of English air 

That lonely tree against the western sky. 
Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear, 
Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee! 

Fields where soft sheep from cages pull the hay, 5 

Woods with anemones in flower till May, 
Know him a wanderer still; then why not me? 

A fugitive and gracious light he seeks, 
Shy to illumine; and I seek it too. 

This does not come with houses or with gold, 10 

With place, with honor, and a flattering crew; 

'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold — 
But the smooth-slipping weeks 
Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired; 

Out of the heed of mortals he is gone, 15 

He wends unfollowed, he must house alone; 
Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired. 

Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest wast bound; 
Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour! 

Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest, 20 

If men esteemed thee feeble, gave thee power, 
If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest. 
And this rude Cumner ground, 

tradition was, like the Linus-song, one of the early plaintive strains of Greek 
popular poetry, and used to be sung by corn-reapers. Other traditions 
represented Daphnis as beloved by a nymph who exacted from him an 
oath to love no one else. He fell in love with a princess, and was struck 
blind by the jealous nymph. Mercury, who was his father, raised him 
to Heaven, and made a fountain spring up in the place from which he 
ascended. At this fountain the Sicilians offered yearly sacrifices. — See 
Servitjs, Comment, in Virgil. Bucol., v. 20 and viii, 68. [Arnold's note.] 



SELECTED POEMS 8 I 

Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields, 
Here cam'st thou in thy jocund youthful time, 
Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime! 

And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields. 

What though the music of thy rustic flute 5 

Kept not for long its happy, country tone; 

Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note 
Of men contention-tost, of men who groan, 

Which tasked thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat — 
It failed, and thou wast mute! 10 

Yet hadst thou always visions of our light, 

And long with men of care thou couldst not stay, 

And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way, 
Left human haunt, and on alone till night. 

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here! 15 

'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore, 

Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home. 
— Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar, 

Let in thy voice a whisper often come, 
To chase fatigue and fear: 20 

Why faintest thou? I wandered till I died. 

Roam on ! The light we sought is shining still. 

Dost thou ask proof? Our tree yet crowns the hill, 
Our Scholar travels yet the loved hillside. 



\2 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

MEMORIAL VERSES 

April, 1850 

Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, 

Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease. 

But one such death remained to come; 

The last poetic voice is dumb — 

We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb. 5 

When Byron's eyes were shut in death, 
We bowed our head and held our breath. 
He taught us little; but our soul 
Had felt him like the thunder's roll. 
With shivering heart the strife we saw 10 

Of passion with eternal law; 
And yet with reverential awe 
We watched the fount of fiery life 
Which served for that Titanic strife. 

When Goethe's death was told, we said: 15 

Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head. 

Physician of the iron age, 

Goethe has done his pilgrimage. 

He took the suffering human race, 

He read each wound, each weakness clear; 20 

And struck his finger on the place, 

And said: Thou ailest here, and here! 

He looked on Europe's dying hour 

Of fitful dream and feverish power; 

His eye plunged down the weltering strife, 25 

The turmoil of expiring life — 

He said: The end is everywhere, 

Art still has truth, take refuge there! 

5. Wordsworth died on April 23, 1850. 






SELECTED POEMS 83 

And he was happy, if to know 

Causes of things, and far below 

His feet to see the lurid flow 

Of terror, and insane distress, 

And headlong fate, be happiness. 5 

And Wordsworth! — Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice! 

For never has such soothing voice 

Been to your shadowy world conveyed, 

Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade 

Heard the clear song of Orpheus come 10 

Through Hades, and the mournful gloom. 

Wordsworth has gone from us — and ye, 

Ah, may ye feel his voice as we! 

He too upon a wintry clime 

Had fallen, — on this iron time 15 

Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears. 

He found us when the age had bound 

Our souls in its benumbing round; 

He spoke, and loosed our hearts in tears. 

He laid us as we lay at birth 20 

On the cool flowery lap of earth, 

Smiles broke from us and we had ease; 

The hills were round us, and the breeze 

Went o'er the sun-lit fields again; 

Our foreheads felt the wind and rain. 25 

Our youth returned; for there was shed 

On spirits that had long been dead, 

Spirits dried up and closely furled, 

The freshness of the early world. 

Ah! since dark days still bring to light 3° 

Man's prudence and man's fiery might, 
Time may restore us in his course 
Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force; 



84 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

But where will Europe's latter hour 
Again find Wordsworth's healing power? 
Others will teach us how to dare, 
And against fear our breast to steel; 
Others will strengthen us to bear — 
But who, ah! who, will make us feel? 
The cloud of mortal destiny, 
Others will front it fearlessly — 
But who, like him, will put it by? 
Keep fresh the grass upon his grave, 
O Rotha, with thy living wave! 
Sing him thy best! for few or none 
Hear thy voice right, now he is gone. 



STANZAS IN MEMORY OF EDWARD QUILLINAN 

I saw him sensitive in frame, 

I knew his spirits low; 15 

And wished him health, success, and fame — 

I do not wish it now. 

For these are all their own reward, 

And leave no good behind; 
They try us, oftenest make us hard, 20 

Less modest, pure, and kind. 

Alas! yet to the suffering man, 

In this his mortal state, 
Friends could not give what fortune can, — 

Health, ease, a heart elate. 25 

14- Quillinan (1701-1851) was the son-in-law of Wordsworth and 
himself a poet. 









SELECTED POEMS 85 

But he is now by fortune foiled 

No more; and we retain 
The memory of a man unspoiled, 

Sweet, generous, and humane — 

With all the fortunate have not, 5 

With gentle voice and brow. 
— Alive, we would have changed his lot, 

We would not change it now. 

A SOUTHERN NIGHT 1 

• The sandy spits, the shore-locked lakes, 

Melt into open, moonlit sea; IO 

The soft Mediterranean breaks 
At my feet, free. 

Dotting the fields of corn and vine, 

Like ghosts the huge, gnarled olives stand; 
Behind, that lovely mountain line! 15 

While, by the strand, — 

Cette, with its glistening houses white, 
Curves with the curving beach away 
To where the lighthouse beacons bright 

Far in the bay. 20 

Ah! such a night, so soft, so lone, 
So moonlit, saw me once of yore 
Wander unquiet, and my own 
Vext heart deplore. 

1 Written in memory of the poet's brother, William Delafield Arnold, 
Director of Public Instruction in the Punjab, and author of "Oakfield, 
or Fellowship in the East," who died at Gibraltar, on his way home 
from India, April the 9th, 1859. [A note of Arnold's applied.] 



86 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

But now that trouble is forgot; 

Thy memory, thy pain, to-night, 
My brother! and thine early lot, 
Possess me quite. 

The murmur of this Midland deep 5 

Is heard to-night around thy grave, 
There, where Gibraltar's cannoned steep 
O'erfrowns the wave. 

For there, with bodily anguish keen, 

With Indian heats at last fo redone, 10 

With public toil and private teen, — 
Thou sank'st, alone. 

Slow to a stop, at morning gray, 

I see the smoke-crowned vessel come; 
Slow round her paddles dies away 15 

The seething foam. 

A boat is lowered from her side; 

Ah, gently place him on the bench! 
That spirit — if all have not yet died — 

A breath might quench. 20 

Is this the eye, the footstep fast, 

The mien of youth we used to see, 
Poor, gallant boy! — for such thou wast, 
Still art, to me. 

The limbs their wonted tasks refuse; 25 

The eyes are glazed, thou canst not speak; 
And whiter than thy white burnous 
That wasted cheek! 



SELECTED POEMS 87 

Enough! The boat, with quiet shock, 

Unto its haven coming nigh, 
Touches, and on Gibraltar's rock 
Lands thee to die. 

Ah me! Gibraltar's strand is far, 5 

But farther yet across the brine 
Thy dear wife's ashes buried are, 
Remote from thine. 

For there, where morning's sacred fount 

Its golden rain on earth confers, 10 

The snowy Himalayan Mount 
O'ershadows hers. 

Strange irony of fate, alas, 

Which, for two jaded English, saves, 
When from their dusty life they pass, 15 

Such peaceful graves! 

In cities should we English lie, 

Where cries are rising ever new, 
And men's incessant stream goes by, — 

We who pursue 20 

Our business with unslackening stride, 

Traverse in troops, with care-filled breast, 
The soft Mediterranean side, 
The Nile, the East, 

And see all sights from pole to pole, 25 

And glance, and nod, and bustle by, 
And never once possess our soul 
Before we die. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Not by those hoary Indian hills, 

Not by this gracious Midland sea 
Whose floor to-night sweet moonshine fills, 
Should our graves be. 

Some sage, to whom the world was dead, 5 

And men were specks, and life a play; 
Who made the roots of trees his bed, 
And once a day 

With staff and gourd his way did bend 

To villages and homes of man, 10 

For food to keep him till he end 
His mortal span 

And the pure goal of being reach; 

Hoar-headed, wrinkled, clad in white, 
Without companion, without speech, 15 

By day and night 

Pondering God's mysteries untold, 

And tranquil as the glacier-snows 
He by those Indian mountains old 

Might well repose. 20 

Some gray crusading knight austere, 

Who bore Saint Louis company, 
And came home hurt to death, and here 
Landed to die; 

Some youthful troubadour, whose tongue 25 

Filled Europe once with his love-pain, 
Who here outworn had sunk, and sung 
His dying strain ; 



SELECTED POEMS 89 

Some girl, who here from castle-bower, 
With furtive step and cheek of flame, 
'Twixt myrtle-hedges all in flower 
By moonlight came 

To meet her pirate-lover's ship; 5 

And from the wave-kissed marble stair 
Beckon'd him on, with quivering lip 
And floating hair; 

And lived some moons in happy trance, 

Then learnt his death, and pined away, — 10 

Such by these waters of romance 
'Twas meet to lay. 

But you — a grave for knight or sage, 
Romantic, solitary, still, 

spent ones of a work-day age! 15 

Befits you ill. 

So sang I; but the midnight breeze, 

Down to the brimmed, moon-charmed main, 
Comes softly through the olive-trees, 

And checks my strain. 20 

1 think of her, whose gentle tongue 

All plaint in her own cause controlled; 
Of thee I think, my brother! young 
In heart, high-souled ; — 

That comely face, that clustered brow, 25 

That cordial hand, that bearing free, 
I see them still, I see them now, 
Shall always see! 



9<D MATTHEW ARNOLD 

And what but gentleness untired, 

And what but noble feeling warm, 
Wherever shown, howe'er inspired, 
Is grace, is charm? 

What else is all these waters are, 

What else is steeped in lucid sheen, 
What else is bright, what else is fair, 
What else serene? 

Mild o'er her grave, ye mountains, shine! 

Gently by his, ye waters, glide! 
To that in you which is divine 
They were allied. 



RUGBY CHAPEL 

November, 1857 

Coldly, sadly descends 

The autumn evening. The field 

Strewn with its dank yellow drifts 15 

Of withered leaves, and the elms, 

Fade into dimness apace, 

Silent; — hardly a shout 

From a few boys late at their play! 

The lights come out in the street, 20 

In the school-room windows; — but cold, 

Solemn, unlighted, austere, 

Through the gathering darkness, arise 

The chapel-walls, in whose bound 

Thou, my father! art laid. 25 

25. Dr. Thomas Arnold, the poet's famous father, died June 12, 
1842. 




THOMAS ARNOLD 

From a painting 



SELECTED POEMS 91 

There thou dost lie, in the gloom 

Of the autumn evening. But ah! 

That word, gloom, to my mind 

Brings thee back, in the light 

Of thy radiant vigor, again; 5 

In the gloom of November we passed 

Days not dark at thy side; 

Seasons impaired not the ray 

Of thy buoyant cheerfulness clear. 

Such thou wast! and I stand 10 

In the autumn evening, and think 

Of bygone autumns with thee. 

Fifteen years have gone round 

Since thou arosest to tread, 

In the summer morning, the road 15 

Of death, at a call unforeseen, 

Sudden. For fifteen years, 

We who till then in thy shade 

Rested as under the boughs 

Of a mighty oak, have endured 20 

Sunshine and rain as we might, 

Bare, unshaded, alone, 

Lacking the shelter of thee. 

O strong soul, by what shore 

Tarriest thou now? For that force, 25 

Surely, has not been left vain! 

Somewhere, surely, afar, 

In the sounding labor-house vast 

Of being, is practised that strength, 

Zealous, beneficent, firm! 30 



92 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Yes, in some far-shining sphere, 

Conscious or not of the past, 

Still thou performest the word 

Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live - 

Prompt, unwearied, as here! 

Still thou upraisest with zeal 

The humble good from the ground, 

Sternly repressest the bad ; 

Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse 

Those with half-open eyes 

Tread the border-land dim 

'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st, 

Succorest! — This was thy work, 

This was thy life upon earth. 

What is the course of the life 

Of mortal men on the earth? — 

Most men eddy about 

Here and there — eat and drink, 

Chatter and love and hate, 

Gather and squander, are raised 

Aloft, are hurled in the dust, 

Striving blindly, achieving 

Nothing; and then they die, ; — 

Perish; — and no one asks 

Who or what they have been, 

More than he asks what waves, 

In the moonlit solitudes mild 

Of the midmost Ocean, have swelled, 

Foamed for a moment, and gone. 

And there are some, whom a thirst 
Ardent, unquenchable, fires, 
Not with the crowd to be spent, 



SELECTED POEMS 93 

Not without aim to go round 

In an eddy of purposeless dust, 

Effort unmeaning and vain. 

Ah yes! some of us strive 

Not without action to die 5 

Fruitless, but something to snatch 

From dull oblivion, nor all 

Glut the devouring grave! 

We, we have chosen our path, — 

Path to a clear-purposed goal, 10 

Path of advance! — but it leads 

A long, steep journey, through sunk 

Gorges, o'er mountains in snow. 

Cheerful, with friends, we set forth — 

Then, on the height, comes the storm. 15 

Thunder crashes from rock 

To rock, the cataracts reply, 

Lightnings dazzle our eyes. 

Roaring torrents have breached 

The track; the stream-bed descends 20 

In the place where the wayfarer once 

Planted his footstep — the spray 

Boils o'er its borders! aloft 

The unseen snow-beds dislodge 

Their hanging ruin; alas, 25 

Havoc is made in our train! 

Friends, who set forth at our side, 

Falter, are lost in the storm. 

We, we only are left! 

With frowning foreheads, with lips 30 

Sternly compressed, we strain on, 

On — and at nightfall at last 

Come to the end of our way, 



94 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks; 
Where the gaunt and taciturn host 
Stands on the threshold, the wind 
Shaking his thin white hairs — 
Holds his lantern to scan 
Our storm-beat figures, and asks: 
Whom in our party we bring? 
Whom we have left in the snow? 

Sadly we answer: We bring 
Only ourselves! we lost 
Sight of the rest in the storm. 
Hardly ourselves we fought through, 
Stripped, without friends, as we are. 
Friends, companions, and train, 
The avalanche swept from our side. 

But thou wouldst not alone 
Be saved, my father! alone 
Conquer and come to thy goal, 
Leaving the rest in the wild. 
We were weary, and we 
Fearful, and we in our march 
Fain to drop down and to die. 
Still thou turnedst, and still 
Beckonedst the trembler, and still 
Gavest the weary thy hand. 
If, in the paths of the world, 
Stones might have wounded thy feet, 
Toil or dejection have tried 
Thy spirit, of that we saw 
Nothing — to us thou wast still 
Cheerful, and helpful, and firm! 



SELECTED POEMS 95 

Therefore to thee it was given 

Many to save with thyself; 

And, at the end of thy day, 

O faithful shepherd! to come, 

Bringing thy sheep in thy hand. 5 

And through thee I believe 

In the noble and great who are gone; 

Pure souls honored and blest 

By former ages, who else — 

Such, so soulless, so poor, 10 

Is the race of men whom I see — 

Seemed but a dream of the heart, 

Seemed but a cry of desire. 

Yes! I believe that there lived 

Others like thee in the past, 15 

Not like the men of the crowd 

Who all round me to-day 

Bluster or cringe, and make life 

Hideous, and arid, and vile; 

But souls tempered with fire, 20 

Fervent, heroic, and good, 

Helpers and friends of mankind. 

Servants of God! — or sons 

Shall I not call you? because 

Not as servants ye knew 25 

Your Father's innermost mind, 

His, who unwillingly sees 

One of his little ones lost, — 

Yours is the praise, if mankind 

Hath not as yet in its march 30 

Fainted, and fallen, and died! 



g6 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

See! In the rocks of the world 

Marches the host of mankind, 

A feeble, wavering line. 

Where are they tending? — A God 

Marshalled them, gave them their goal. 5 

Ah, but the way is so long! 

Years they have been in the wild! 

Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks, 

Rising all round, overawe; 

Factions divide them, their host 10 

Threatens to break, to dissolve. 

— Ah! keep, keep them combined! 

Else, of the myriads who fill 

That army, not one shall arrive; 

Sole they shall stray; in the rocks 15 

Stagger forever in vain, 

Die one by one in the waste. 

Then, in such hour of need 

Of your fainting, dispirited race, 

Ye, like angels, appear, 20 

Radiant with ardor divine! 

Beacons of hope, ye appear! 

Languor is not in your heart, 

Weakness is not in your word, 

Weariness not on your brow. 25 

Ye alight in our van! at your voice, 

Panic, despair, flee away. 

Ye move through the ranks, recall 

The stragglers, refresh the outworn, 

Praise, re-inspire the brave! 30 

Order, courage, return. 




THE OLD CHAPEL AT RUGBY 

From Radclyffe's " Memorials " 



SELECTED POEMS 97 

Eyes rekindling, and prayers, 

Follow your steps as ye go. 

Ye fill up the gaps in our files, 

Strengthen the wavering line, 

Stablish, continue our march, 5 

On, to the bound of the waste, 

On, to the City of God. 



STANZAS FROM THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE 

Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused 
>With rain, where thick the crocus blows, 
Past the dark forges long disused, 10 

The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes. 
The bridge is crossed, and slow we ride, 
Through forest, up the mountain-side. 

The autumnal evening darkens round, 

The wind is up, and drives the rain; 15 

While, hark! far down, with strangled sound 

Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain, 

Where that wet smoke, among the woods, 

Over his boiling caldron broods. 

Swift rush the spectral vapors white 20 

Past limestone scars with ragged pines, 

Showing — then blotting from our sight! — 

Halt — through the cloud-drift something shines! 

High in the valley, wet and drear, 

The huts of Courrerie appear. 25 

Strike leftward! cries our guide; and higher 
Mounts up the stony forest-way. 
At last the encircling trees retire; 



98 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Look! through the showery twilight gray, 
What pointed roofs are these advance? — 
A palace of the Kings of France ? 

Approach, for what we seek is here! 

Alight, and sparely sup, and wait 5 

For rest in this outbuilding near; 

Then cross the sward and reach that gate. 

Knock; pass the wicket! Thou art come 

To the Carthusians' world -famed home. 

The silent courts, where night and day 10 

Into their stone-carved basins cold 

The splashing icy fountains play — 

The humid corridors behold! 

Where, ghostlike in the deepening night, 

Cowled forms brush by in gleaming white. 15 

The chapel, where no organ's peal 

Invests the stern and naked prayer — 

With penitential cries they kneel 

And wrestle; rising then, with bare 

And white uplifted faces stand, 20 

Passing the Host from hand to hand; 

Each takes, and then his visage wan 

Is buried in his cowl once more. 

The cells! — the suffering Son of Man 

Upon the wall — the knee-worn floor — 25 

And where they sleep, that wooden bed, 

Which shall their coffin be, when dead! 

9. The original monastery of the Carthusian Monks, founded in 1084, 
by St. Bruno. It is situated near Grenoble, in eastern France. The 
poet Thomas Gray, in 1741, wrote a beautiful Latin ode in the album of 
the monastery — another link between him and Arnold. 



SELECTED POEMS 99 

The library, where tract and tome 

Not to feed priestly pride are there, 

To hymn the conquering march of Rome, 

Nor yet to amuse, as ours are! 

They paint of souls the inner strife, 5' 

Their drops of blood, their death in life. 

The garden, overgrown — yet mild, 

See, fragrant herbs are flowering there! 

Strong children of the Alpine wild 

Whose culture is the brethren's care; 10 

Of human tasks their only one, 

And cheerful works beneath the sun. 

Those halls, too, destined to contain 

Each its own pilgrim-host of old, 

From England, Germany, or Spain, — 15 

All are before me! I behold 

The House, the Brotherhood austere! 

— And what am I, that I am here? 

For rigorous teachers seized my youth, 

And purged its faith, and trimmed its fire, 20 

Showed me the high, white star of Truth, 

There bade me gaze, and there aspire. 

Even now their whispers pierce the gloom: 

What dost thou in this living tomb? 

Forgive me, masters of the mind! 25 

At whose behest I long ago 

So much unlearnt, so much resigned — 

I come not here to be your foe! 

I seek these anchorites, not in ruth, 

To curse and to deny your truth; 30 



IOO MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Not as their friend, or child, I speak! 

But as, on some far northern strand, 

Thinking of his own gods, a Greek 

In pity and mournful awe might stand 

Before some fallen Runic stone — 5 

For both were faiths, and both are gone. 

Wandering between two worlds, one dead, 

The other powerless to be born, 

With nowhere yet to rest my head, 

Like these, on earth I wait forlorn. 10 

Their faith, my tears, the world deride — 

I come to shed them at their side. 

Oh, hide me in your gloom profound, 

Ye solemn seats of holy pain! 

Take me, cowled forms, and fence me round, 15 

Till I possess my soul again; 

Till free my thoughts before me roll, 

Not chafed by hourly false control! 

For the world cries your faith is now 

But a dead time's exploded dream; 20 

My melancholy, sciolists say, 

Is a passed mode, an outworn theme, — 

As if the world had ever had 

A faith, or sciolists been sad! 

Ah, if it be passed, take away, 25 

At least, the restlessness, the pain; 

Be man henceforth no more a prey 

To these out-dated stings again! 

The nobleness of grief is gone — 

Ah, leave us not the fret alone! 3° 



SELECTED POEMS IOI 

But, — if you cannot give us ease, — 

Last of the race of them who grieve 

Here leave us to die out with these 

Last of the people who believe! 

Silent, while years engrave the brow, 5 

Silent — the best are silent now. 

Achilles ponders in his tent, 

The kings of modern thought are dumb; 

Silent they are, though not content, 

And wait to see the future come. 10 

They have the grief men had of yore, 

But they contend and cry no more. 

Our fathers watered with their tears 

This sea of time whereon we sail, 

Their voices were in all men's ears 15 

Who passed within their puissant hail. 

Still the same ocean round us raves, 

But we stand mute, and watch the waves. 

For what availed it, all the noise 

And outcry of the former men ? — 20 

Say, have their sons achieved more joys, 

Say, is life lighter now than then? 

The sufferers died, they left their pain — 

The pangs which tortured them remain. 

What helps it now, that Byron bore, 25 

With haughty scorn which mocked the smart, 

Through Europe to the vEtolian shore 

The pageant of his bleeding heart? 

That thousands counted every groan, 

And Europe made his woe her own ? 30 



102 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

What boots it, Shelley! that the breeze 

Carried thy lovely wail away, 

Musical through Italian trees 

Which fringe thy soft blue Spezzian bay? 

Inheritors of thy distress 5 

Have restless hearts one throb the less? 

Or are we easier, to have read, 

O Obermann! the sad, stern page, 

Which tells us how thou hidd'st thy head 

From the fierce tempest of thine age 10 

In the lone brakes of Fontainebleau, 

Or chalets near the Alpine snow ? 

Ye slumber in your silent grave! — 

The world, which for an idle day 

Grace to your mood of sadness gave, 15 

Long since hath flung her weeds away. 

The eternal trifler breaks your spell; 

But we — we learnt your lore too well! 

Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age, 

More fortunate, alas! than we, 20 

Which without hardness will be sage, 

And gay without frivolity. 

Sons of the world, oh, speed those years; 

But, while we wait, allow our tears! 

8. A book by Etienne Pivert de Senancour, a French author who was 
much praised by Arnold and to whose memory he devoted two poems. 
Senancour (1 770-1846) broke away from the priesthood and gave him- 
self up to literature without great success. His "Obermann" is a collec- 
tion of letters from Switzerland treating almost entirely of nature and 
the human soul." [Adapted from a note of Arnold's.] 



SELECTED POEMS 103 

Allow them! We admire with awe 

The exulting thunder of your race; 

You give the universe your law, 

You triumph over time and space! 

Your pride of life, your tireless powers, 5 

We praise them, but they are not ours. 

We are like children reared in shade 

Beneath some old-world abbey wall, 

Forgotten in a forest-glade, 

And secret from the eyes of all. 10 

Deep, deep the greenwood round them waves, 

Their abbey, and its close of graves! 

But, where the road runs near the stream, 

Oft through the trees they catch a glance 

Of passing troops in the sun's beam, — 15 

Pennon, and plume, and flashing lance! 

Forth to the world those soldiers fare, 

To life, to cities, and to war! 

And through the wood, another way, 

Faint bugle-notes from far are borne, 20 

Where hunters gather, staghounds bay, 

Round some old forest-lodge at morn. 

Gay dames are there, in sylvan green; 

Laughter and cries — those notes between! 

The banners flashing through the trees 25 

Make their blood dance and chain their eyes; 

That bugle-music on the breeze 

Arrests them with a charmed surprise. 

Banner by turns and bugle woo: 

Ye shy recluses, follow too ! 30 



104 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

O children, what do ye reply ? — 

"Action and pleasure, will ye roam 

Through these secluded dells to cry 

And call us? — but too late ye come! 

Too late for us your call ye blow, 5 

Whose bent was taken long ago. 

"Long since we pace this shadowed nave; 

We watch those yellow tapers shine, 

Emblems of hope over the grave, 

In the high altar's depth divine. 10 

The organ carries to our ear 

Its accents of another sphere. 

" Fenced early in this cloistral round 

Of revery, of shade, of prayer, 

How should we grow in other ground ? 15 

How can we flower in foreign air? 

— Pass, banners, pass, and bugles, cease ; 

And leave our desert to its peace!" 



GEIST'S GRAVE 

Four years! — and didst thou stay above 

The ground, which hides thee now, but four? 20 

And all that life, and all that love, 

Were crowded, Geist! into no more? 

Only four years those winning ways, 

Which make me for thy presence yearn, 

Called us to pet thee or to praise, 25 

Dear little friend ! at every turn ? 



SELECTED POEMS 105 

That loving heart, that patient soul, 
Had they indeed no longer span, 
To run their course, and reach their goal, 
And read their homily to man? 

That liquid, melancholy eye, 5 

From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs 
Seemed surging the Virgilian cry, 
The sense of tears in mortal things — 

That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled 

By spirits gloriously gay, 10 

And temper of heroic mould — 

What, was four years their whole short day ? 

Yes, only four! — and not the course 

Of all the centuries yet to come, 

And not the infinite resource 15 

Of Nature, with her countless sum 

Of figures, with her fulness vast 

Of new creation evermore, 

Can ever quite repeat the past, 

Or just thy little self restore. 20 

Stern law of every mortal lot! 

Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear, 

And builds himself I know not what 

Of second life I know not where. 

But thou, when struck thine hour to go, 25 

On us, who stood despondent by, 

A meek last glance of love didst throw, 

And humbly lay thee down to die 

7. Sunt lacrimcB rerum ! [Arnold's note. Aen 1, 462.] 



106 MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Yet would we keep thee in our heart — 
Would fix our favorite on the scene, 
Nor let thee utterly depart 
And be as if thou ne'er hadst been. 

And so there rise these lines of verse 5 

On lips that rarely form them now; 

While to each other we rehearse: 

Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou I 

We stroke thy broad brown paws again, 

We bid thee to thy vacant chair, 10 

We greet thee by the window-pane, 

We hear thy scuffle on the stair. 

We see the flaps of thy large ears 

Quick raised to ask which way we go; 

Crossing the frozen lake, appears 15 

Thy small black figure on the snow! 

Nor to us only art thou dear 

Who mourn thee in thine English home; 

Thou hast thine absent master's tear, 

Dropt by the far Australian foam. 20 

Thy memory lasts both here and there, 
And thou shalt live as long as we. 
And after that — thou dost not care! 
In us was all the world to thee. 

Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame, 25 

Even to a date beyond our own 
We strive to carry down thy name, 
By mounded turf, and graven stone. 



SELECTED POEMS 107 

We lay thee, close within our reach, 

Here, where the grass is smooth and warm, 

Between the holly and the beech, 

Where oft we watch'd thy couchant form, 

Asleep, yet lending half an ear 5 

To travellers on the Portsmouth road; — 
There build we thee, O guardian dear, 
Mark'd with a stone, thy last abode! 

Then some, who through this garden pass, 
When we too, like thyself, are clay, 10 

Shall see thy grave upon the grass, 
And stop before the stone, and say: 

People who lived here long ago 

Did by this stone, it seems, intend 

To name for future times to know 15 

The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend. 



&77-2X 



